‘Oh dear,’ I hear her say. How she’s mastered sarcasm so young is beyond me. Did she do it on purpose? It’s highly likely. Can I prove my three-year-old is a conniving little mistress? No, she’s too smart for that. Covers her tracks with her innocence.

‘Don’t worry. These things happen,’ I say, knowing that if I scowl at her now there’s definitely no chance she’ll eat any of her dinner afterwards. ‘Eat now, my love.’

She sighs and looks down at her plate.

I regularly wonder if I’m too soft on Chloe. Maybe I should be firmer in my approach and resist giving in when we’re at loggerheads. But there’s only so much tension I can take so yes, I absolutely do go for the easy way out when I have to. She’s such a fiery little character, and I’ve learnt that you can’t fight fire with fire. It just doesn’t work. Not in our case anyway. Is this an age thing? A second child thing? Or simply a Chloe thing? I don’t remember Barnaby being this difficult, but then I guess he had all of my attention. Perhaps second children all come out with their elbows at the ready, prepared to nudge their way through, whatever the costs.

Growing up, my mum only had to throw ‘the look’ in the direction of me and my two brothers for us to cease whatever it was we were doing she disapproved of. It was a look that said she was serious and that we’d gone too far. A look that let us know there’d be consequences if we continued with our ‘testing’ behaviour. I always assumed ‘the look’ was something you inherited as soon as you became a mum – like a superhero skill to defeat all the whinging and stop all the potential injuries.

I think my look might be broken though, because no one seems to take a blind bit of notice. Except Barnaby, I guess – but only when I’ve taken a frustration with Chloe out on him. Otherwise he’s just as oblivious to my squinting glares of disapproval.