My mother has a crush on Tommy Pickles. She is infatuated with Tommy Pickles. She giggles like a giddy schoolgirl when she's in the presence of Tommy Pickles.

Tommy Pickles is a cartoon character.

I didn't know who he was until last week, when we took my mother to the Dreamworld Theme Park on Australia's Gold Coast.

When we arrived, my mother picked up a park map and screamed: 'I can get my photo taken with Tommy Pickles!'

'Tommy Pickles,' I pondered. 'Wasn't he that British singer who sang Half A Sixpence?'

My mother pointed out that I was referring to the English rock 'n' roll star Tommy Steele (a great cultural reference there for anyone over 60).

She was actually foaming at the mouth for a cartoon character from the Nickelodeon series, Rugrats (a cultural reference for anyone under six).

'Who's Tommy Pickles, then?' I asked my delirious mother.

'He's great. He has these big, blank eyes, always wears a T-shirt and is bald.'

'He sounds like my stepfather.'

'And he wears a diaper.'

'Is he an old singer suffering from incontinence?'

'No, he acts like a baby and always talks gibberish.'

'Still sounds like my stepfather.'

But Tommy is, in fact, the bald baby from Rugrats. And my mother, a grandmother, is infatuated with him.

Like many aunties, she enjoys a healthy crush on attractive celebrities.

Have you seen the aunties scream and throw their knickers on stage when Korean actor Bae Yong Joon appears? My mother used to do that with Rod Stewart.

Well, she never actually threw her knickers on stage. She adored Stewart, but we were poor and knickers were expensive.

Like many aunties, my mother's infatuations are getting younger, like a Benjamin Button-style of fan worship.

When she was little, she loved old crooners of the 1950s such as Dean Martin.

As she got older, the objects of her obsession got younger. She moved on to Tom Jones, John Lennon, David Cassidy and, bizarrely, Australian one-hit wonder Peter Andre.

I once visited a Las Vegas casino, wandered past the closed doors of a theatre and heard Jones singing inside.

I called my mother and she insisted that I press the mobile phone up against the door so she could hear the Welsh singer's dulcet tones live.

And then she started singing along - loudly.

Providing out-of-tune back up vocals for Jones, my handphone started bellowing: 'My, my, my, Delilah! Why, why, why, Delilah!'

My mother's distorted performance drew quite a crowd. A security guard moved me on because he feared her caterwauling might drown out Jones.

But that was years ago. In recent months, she has been fretting over Peter Andre's toned abs, his break-up with glamour model Jordan, his toned abs, his career, his toned abs.

Fortunately, my mother has conquered her Peter Andre fixation. She has moved on.

She has moved on to a diaper-wearing Rugrat. Her regressive fan worship is complete.

'Where can I get my picture taken with Tommy the Rugrat?' she cried, as we made our way to the Nickelodeon main stage at Dreamworld.

'How do you even know who Tommy is?' I asked.

'I heard about him from the kids at school.'

My mum's a teaching assistant. She doesn't hang around schools stalking boy bands.

As we sought out her photo opportunity with a cartoon baby, I wondered how she would handle being in the presence of a 'celebrity'. She doesn't cope very well with famous people.

A day earlier, we took her to Warner Bros Movie World.

By chance, she bumped into a cinematic icon. The unexpected close encounter left her stunned. She blushed and rambled on incoherently.

She was talking to a bloke in a Batman suit.

It wasn't Christian Bale or George Clooney. It was a local Aussie guy paid a few bucks to dress in a batsuit and say 'G'day' to tourists.

We thought the idea of Batman sounding like Crocodile Dundee might shatter the illusion, but no, my mother thought she was in Gotham City.

She smiled nervously at Local Aussie Guy and mumbled: 'So, is, er, Robin working with you today?'

We dragged her away before she asked for a spin in the Batmobile.

Back in Dreamworld, she finally spotted the latest object of her desire.

'It's Tommy Pickles,' she cried, and dashed over to what can only be described as a dwarfish man with disturbingly knobby knees protruding through his Rugrat's costume.

Caught up in the moment, my mother posed for the photograph and rested her hand on Tommy Pickles' diaper.

That did the trick. That broke through the fourth wall.

When the Rugrat yelped, clutched at his diaper and took off like Apollo II, my mother came to her senses.

She realised that he was just a regular guy in a costume.

And then she spotted SpongeBob Squarepants and chased him across the stage.

This article was first published in The Straits Times.