So 2008 is about to end and another year is about to begin and as is common at a time like this my mind has turned to what has transpired and what has been learned in the last 12 months - so here goes.

Usurper has had a busy 12 months - probably the busiest 12 months that you can have in the life of a normal human being. She has spent this year learning to walk, talk, sing, hop, play, eat solid foods, play peek a boo and bat her eyelids at cafe waitresses so that they give her a free cookie or the like. Her most recent development is a sense of ownership - everything belongs to someone and she gets most upset if the wrong person touches something. It also leads to being woken up by a deranged toddler screaming ’shoooooosssssss!!!’ at 400db while shoving smelly runners into your face because she thinks she is doing you a favour making sure you don’t forget your shoes even while aslep.

Let’s face it when compared to my main achievement this year of ‘not dieing’ it really does put most of us to shame.

Little Miss has gone from toddler to little girl and all that entails. She picks her own clothes, dresses herself, has a sense of style, a pop culture sense of self in everything from TV shows to hobbies. Of course with a sense of self has come tantrums, stubboness and a refusal to listen to the sensible advice given by her parents. It is as frustrating as hell at times, and it will get worse, but at the same time I can’t wait to watch her grow over the coming year - she is on the brink of reading and writing and of course she will start pondering the great philosophical questions of life - such as why is the stuff we eat have the same name as the pretty birds down on the farms?

Roll on 2009 - surely it’ll start getting easier from now on!