MY pivotal role as a mother has been usurped by a toasted teacake. All my tender loving care, my nurturing and my constant attention to my beloved daughter's every whim and want is nothing when compared to the delights of a hot, buttery snack.

Since starting nursery for two mornings a week last month, my baby girl has led me a merry dance. She has wept, she has sobbed and she has clung to my arm like a monkey to a banana tree.

After prising her off and handing her over, I have always left the building with a terrible feeling of guilt under a dark, billowing cloud marked "bad mother". I have, that is, until now.

Now I know she has only been crying to make me feel better, to make me feel wanted and useful. She didn't let the secret slip herself; she's only ten months old and has the conversational capabilities of Jordan after six pints of crme de menthe ("I luv you Peter Andre, you're me best mate you are").

Strangely enough, that's not where the similarities end. My girl also sits on her bum all day twiddling with her bouffant, blonde locks, pointing at things she wants right now this minute and is completely incapable of saying no.

Is it too early to commit her to a convent just to be on the safe side?

Probably. The nursery will have to do. Which brings me back to where I started before rudely interrupting myself.

My tot's secret was blabbed by her nursery nurse. You do know, she confided in a stage whisper above the caterwauling of my supposedly inconsolable daughter, that she stops crying the minute you leave.

I assumed she was only saying it to make me feel better, so that I wouldn't feel like a complete heel for leaving my baby with strangers while working tirelessly on professionally crafted columns such as this. Okay, so I bash them out between feeding the cats, doing the washing and watching Phil and Fern (I didn't realise quite how large her bottom was until we bought a widescreen TV), but you get my drift.

Maybe she was telling the truth though. Could my daughter be playing me like a violin; plucking at my heart strings so I would feel loved? She could indeed.

As I discovered when I crept round the side of the nursery and spied on her through the picture windows overlooking the car park. I reckon it had taken me a maximum of 30 seconds to scamper from the baby section, through the Mission Impossible levels of security and into my current position (i.e. warm nose pressed to cold glass).

In that short time, my daughter had gone from a quivering, weeping wreck, with tears streaming from her eyes and bubbles of snot popping from her nose, to a rosy-cheeked little cherub, happily munching on a cream cracker.

Maybe I'm giving her too much credit, but I think she somehow cottoned on to the fact that she had been rumbled. I'm fairly sure she didn't see me glued to the window like some mad, mother-sized starfish, so it must have been a form of familial ESP that tipped her off.

Either that, or the ginger haired baby next to her dobbed me in.

The next morning, however, when I dropped her off she didn't bother to bawl. She didn't even try to make me feel better with a tiny whimper. Perhaps she had simply realised that her work was done: I was now ready to leave her at nursery without guilt and without the nagging fear that I was a bad mother.

Perhaps, but perhaps not.

To be honest, I think it was the steaming pile of toasted teacakes that did it. One look at them and I was suddenly surplus to requirements.

You can love them and nurture them all you want, but if someone offers them a plate of something yummy, you're yesterday's news.

Updated: 11:10 Monday, March 08, 2004