I woke up this morning - early, to take Dwain to work - and Tiffany was wailing in the kitchen. She sounded like a banshee, so I went out to her to find out what was wrong. She was holding her leg up somewhere around her neck, holding onto her toes with her eyes scrunched shut. There were no tears, just a lot of noise.

“It’s not clean, and Katie knew I couldn’t get the tea towel. Ouch, ow, owwww, it’s not clean! It isn’t clean, Lisa, not clean, not cleaaaaan.”

She wasn’t making any sense, so I asked Stephen what was going on. Apparently she stubbed her toe. Right. Tiffany is a drama queen; Katie may act out and want all the attention, but she doesn’t dramatise situations as well as Tiffany does. So, she’s hopping slightly, holding her toe at neck height, and wailing. It’s. Not. Clean.

I picked up the tea towel, checked her toes and assured her that everything was fine. Then I moved a white bowl from the (precarious) barstool onto the bench and went back to my room. Minutes later, the screaming started up again. Still. Not. Clean. Mum came into my room, holding the white bowl and a tea towel.

On the side of the bowl, there was a raised, off-colour bit of ceramic. The bowl has been like that since we bought it; the bowl is flawed. Mum and I raised our eyebrows and groaned about Tiffany’s OCD like symptoms (at eight, no less), and then she yelled out into the hallway that, “Lisa inspected the bowl, and it’s clean!”

Later on she freaked out because she couldn’t spread the towel out flat on her first try. I think she’s our best bet for carrying on the family crazy.