I was born in the month of the bull and Nora was born in the year of the bull. Yes, we are both stubborn and hold our ground as long as we can.

But Nora has to know that although she is my BFF, I am her mom and it is up to me to discipline her.

Today I bought a bunch of snacks for her from Sainsburys as they were having an offer on baby stuff. The minute she saw the bag at the bottom of the stairs, she started investigating. I put all the snacks back in the shopping bag and she started crying, probably thinking that I won’t let her have any.

I told her firmly that I will give her a little box of raisins when we get upstairs but she has to take her shoes and jacket off first. We did all those through her sobbing. But she knows that she would get something so she was fine.

While she was eating her raisins, I prepared her bath.

Instead of heading towards the bath, she wanted to go to the kitchen to get some more snack. This is when I firmly told her ‘No Nora. Sini (come here)’

She screamed, cried, stamp her feet.

But I repeated the same line over and over again.

She did come to me in the end but the stamping continued all through taking her clothes off, in the bath tub and coming out of the bath tub.

Both of us not giving in but both of us knew that I have the upper hand, therefore she wouldn’t even look at me.

She was crying and screaming and throwing her body as I picked her out of the bathtub. I held her close and recited a verse about five times and she stopped throwing her body, and hugged me and just cried.

Jules came home then and took over to dress her.

She’s in bed now… which was another struggle…

Yes, she’s testing me to see what she can get away with and it is up to me to set the rules. So, both of us will dig our heels and see who crumble first.