I was perhaps the proudest nanny there ever was at Coco’s choice of party theme – octopuses, which she pronounced ‘puss puss’ with pouted lips while fervently clapping her hands. We were learning about them in our Montessori lessons. Well, actually we were learning about sea life, but both Coco and Gaia had developed a stealthy fascination with octopuses – all due to their having three hearts and blue blood – and so I improvised around that. I found some household items that had a sucker pad – a dish scrubber from Ikea, a soap dish, and a toilet plunger – and demonstrated the strength of an octopus’ suckers along its arms. At least until Coco got her face stuck in the toilet plunger, and then Gaia tried to inject herself with biro ink to make her blood blue, thus we moved hastily on to safer octopus facts, such as their tendency to chew off their arms when bored.

For the party, I managed to make octopus decorations out of balloons suspended from the ceiling with eight streamers attached to them. I drew faces on clementines and cut the peel to sit outward like tentacles. I even made an octopus cake topping by rolling purple icing into a ball, sticking some goggly eyes into it, and then rolling eight smaller tube-shapes for arms. Finally, I made Coco a little octopus costume by repurposing an old green bed sheet and some of her old tights stuffed with foam for the legs. Tom had some round white stickers in his office, and I stuck them all along one side of the legs as suckers. Coco was over the moon, clapping her hands and trying to suction all her toys.

The party itself, however, was a little dreary. Once everyone had given their gifts – which took all of two minutes – Gaia leaned over and whispered in my ear: ‘I think it’s really sad that Coco doesn’t have any baby friends at her party.’

‘We’re her friends,’ I said.

‘I’m not her friend,’ Gaia scowled. ‘I’m her sister.’