… not the way I’d choose to start my day. She’s fine now, she’s eaten her body weight in breakfast cereal and there’s tea over everything in the stairwell. I think I’m going to pass it off as a new interior design craze. A large selection of toys are out already – predominantly the noisy ones and she’s trying to use a card reader to turn the TV on so she can watch Frozen for the b’jillionth time. Then finally, a moment of calm, she’s still for 20 seconds or so, lying on the dog bed, vacantly staring into space, breath held, face gradually getting more and more flushed in that way that any parent would recognise.
I think it’s time to make another cup of tea to replace the one I was robbed of earlier. I pop to the kitchen, fill and flip the kettle on and come back in to find Jemima angrily scribbling on her plastic kitchen with a colourful selection of crayons. Tom thinks it’s funny. I’ll ask him if it’s still funny when she’s scribbling over his new laptop with sharpies …