Suspend for a moment, if you will, your disgust at toilet humour. I promise this will be worth it: Jack has decided he wants to learn how to ‘stand-up wee’ like daddy.

Knowing many grown-up men who have yet to master the art of weeing from a standing position without sprinkling outside the toilet bowl, I have my reservations about his chances of success.

Nonetheless I’ve decided to help ‘teach’ him this fine art, and I confess to my shame that its one of the most comical father-son projects we’ve ever embarked upon.

Jack’s first attempt at stand-up weeing came several months ago. But several wee mop-ups later, we established he was a little too short to have very much success.

A little taller and dextrous now, Jack has returned to the task with an invigorated gusto.

Once he’s been convinced to get out of bed for nursery, he’ll immediately trot to the bathroom and carefully position his toilet stool before I’ve even got the lid off the toothpaste.

I suppose I should be pleased really. At the very least, this new enthusiasm for weeing has completely transformed our morning routine and rid it of (most) conflict.

Both my wife and I have also come to admire the precision Jack actually applies here. Placing the stool alone can take a minute or so of trial and error, as he adjusts its distance from the toilet using a technique similar to golfers on a putting green – lining up his ‘shot’ and fine tuning his body and stool position accordingly.

Despite having grown in recent months, Jack remains pretty short relative to the toilet, so has to adopt a fairly extreme posture in order to gain an appropriate angle and trajectory for a successful(ish) stand-up wee.

Standing on his stool, pressing knees against the edge of the toilet bowl, Jack pushes his hips forward so that all the right bits are as far over the lip of the seat as he can manage. To counter this overbalance, he leans his head back and looks almost vertically up at the ceiling, so his body resembles the bendy part of a bow when it is pulled taut.

If this weren’t amusing enough, his facial expression yo-yos between resolute determination and quite deep uncertainty. Doubtless this is because staring at the ceiling means he can’t actually see whether he’s on target or not until he hears his wee hit water, rather than toilet seat.

And it is precisely this that leaves me stifling laughter at risk of putting Jack off. After all his hard work as he asks me: “What’s funny daddy?”