‘Ma, you’re looking like a lady!’

‘Ma, you’re looking like a lady!’ Miss Three was not impressed. Her little nose curled up in confusion.

‘Aren’t I a lady?’ I thought it was a reasonable question. Was my gender being questioned? What had I done to cause this rebuke, except to apply a dash of face powder?

‘No! You’re a Ma!’

‘Is Mummy a lady?’

‘No! She’s a mummy!’ She walked away, disgusted with the conversation.

In her eyes I have no other identity except being her Ma!

And I love being a Ma! I have eight wonderful grandchildren. Last night seven of them were here, turning my normal quiet house into a zoo! I was cooking dinner and sent Miss Three to have a bath with her cousins, twins boys.

She returned looking very perplexed. ‘I can’t have a bath with them.’ She was emphatic.

‘Why not?’

‘I can’t bath with them, 'cause they got sausages!’

She has three older sisters and hadn’t seen ‘sausages’ before! She had left the kitchen before I realised what she meant so she didn’t see me laughing hysterically. She had a bath by herself later! May she always walk in such clarity and wisdom!