Anya came home from school today really excited – next week is her first school dance. It’s to raise money for school funds and she is so looking forward to it. Though it’s still a week away she has told me how she would like her hair done, we have discussed outfits and what sort of glitter gel she will wear. Oh my! What happened. Just a minute ago she was a baby in my arms!

My eight year old knows it all. At her tender age she is sure she is right about everything, I can’t possibly understand her world and I’m an embarrassment to her, especially when I sing.

Her attitude, which isn’t helped by her love of Hannah Montana and Sonny With A Chance, oh and the Wizards of Waverley Place, has come to a head in the past couple of days when it’s time to go to school.

Tantrum is hardly the right word for her behaviour. The slightest thing sets her off and I’m starting to wonder if she’s hormonal. Could that be possible at her age?

What all of the above mentioned TV shows have in common is a rather precocious teenager who is loud and cheeky – and she is taking it on board. I think I will have to ban these programmes from our television.

While it is comical watching her wagging her finger and moving her head from side to side in that particular American-teenage-TV-star-way (I can’t do it, I’ve tried), enough is enough.

She is going to have to be satisfied with CBeebies from now on.

I picked my little horror up from school yesterday and she brought her friend Chelsea home with her. If ever there was a child meant to have brothers and sisters it’s mine. When I was little my friends who had no siblings swore they liked it that way, but I can see my little girl is lonely being the only one. It really pulls at my heart strings that she doesn’t have a sister to play with but that’s the way it has turned out, sadly. On a happier note the two girls had a great time and rushed around the house like two little whirlwinds and as far as I can tell, there were no arguments. Result.

It’s not even 9am and I’ve already got a headache. My little monster has decided to play up this morning and is refusing to do anything without arguing about it. And I’ve got to get her to school yet. She’s eight years old and she really knows how to push my buttons.

She can be so cute though. Yesterday for some reason in the car we were talking about chips – I was telling her how they were always deep fried when I was little and discussing the merits of oven v oil, just a mundane conversation, then she lit it up by having this great idea, a new invention – round chips! Her little face fell when I told her these had already been invented and are called fritters.