Sometimes I get tired just watching Kara, never mind chasing her around.

There’s no stopping our daughter. She powers through everything life throws at her with a combination of perpetual energy, steely determination and the occasional (okay, frequent) diva strop. Woe betide anyone who gets in her way, including her brothers and parents. This is not a girl who takes no for an answer once she has set her mind on something.

By the time Friday evening rolls around at the end of a long week at work, I’m pretty much done. I’m not good for much more than opening a bottle of wine and doing some ironing in front of the The Good Doctor. (It’s Party Central in our house, as you can no doubt tell.)

By the time Friday evening rolls around at the end of a long week at school, Kara’s just getting started. Fridays are gym squad training followed by Rainbows. Then Saturdays it’s dance class followed by a two-hour session at the gym.

There’s no stopping her. Kara makes the Duracell bunny look like a sloth. With flu.

This weekend is no exception, although she did skip her Saturday gym squad for a friend’s birthday party instead. And today she’ll be giving my parents the runaround too as we head in to London for Mother’s Day.

But we did have a brief moment of calm yesterday as we took ourselves off for a coffee and some one-to-one time. Even then she didn’t stop. She was all smiles and non-stop chatter as we whiled away a leisurely half an hour. By the end of it I think my ears were bleeding as she’d barely paused for breath once.

I don’t know where she gets it from. Both Heather and I are quiet and reserved, whereas our daughter’s default mode is ‘full-on charm offensive’. She could fill a vacuum with conversation and dazzle a room of strangers with her smile and sheer force of personality.

Kara really couldn’t be more different from me. And yet that’s part of why I love her so much. After all, who could resist that smile?

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