After a hellish few days, with continual whining and tantrums, a beautifully tempered, charming, funny and wonderful girl emerged on Easter Sunday.

Since then, she has been a jumble of fantastic sayings, fun and most of all, independence. The day I picked her up from nursery after she'd eaten, I was having a sandwich, so she wanted a sandwich. But we had no bread. On goes her coat, Elmo goes in the pushchair and her purse and credit cards are tucked down behind his back. "Pound for bread please mummy. Open the door". She would have gone, and in all likelihood, she would have succeeded.

Today I have noticed her putting on and taking off her shoes, taking off other clothes and making her own wrapper. She counted to 9 absent mindedly but correctly as I put her to bed.

And yesterday she decided to toilet train herself pretty much. Despite me thinking she wasn't ready, she seems to have sorted it out for herself. She's ace.