Craft Crazy

Her sister is an extremely gifted young artist. Her drawings were chosen for the front cover of the School Fete and Christmas Carol programmes. Her latest achievement was being featured in a crafting magazine, which I said makes her officially "published"!

It is very hard not to have the pens, paints, and all the accoutrements needed for some serious licking and sticking in the house. The trouble is Dais can spot a felt tip from a hundred yards and so our home is one huge installation piece and we have come to realise we will just have to wait until she leaves for college before getting the decorators in.

Not only does she express her creative flair anywhere but on paper, but her favourite medium is the body. As she suffers from eczema, this is particularly challenging. As the dutiful parents, we spend ages bathing and creaming her only to find she has ink stamped her legs, painted the soles of her feet and run across the "good rug" and has usually added a fresh scribble to a blank wall between bath and bed.

She won't let me brush her hair in the morning and screams "No! I luff my knots" spits the toothpaste onto the floor (or wipes it into the shaver's plug point on the wall) and usually goes to pre-school with glitter glue on at least one cheek.

Her teachers must think "there's that poor little sod that nobody loves ..."