I am not a morning person.

I will fair dinkum agree to pretty much anything if the payoff is a sleep in.

Unfortunately, Maisie knows this better than anyone.  And with her well-developed rat cunning, she uses it to great effect.

This morning, The Councillor had taken Joe to his school rugby match and had thoughtfully and sensibly left me in bed. Maisie was up and busying herself with all manner of girly, crap-creating activities, but she had been given breakfast by The Councillor, for which I was ever so grateful.

I should point out that although I was in bed, I had removed my earplugs (oh, we are such sexy sleepers in our house) and opened the bedroom door in deference to my daughter actually being under my care.

Anyway, at some point Maisie came in and asked me about/for/to do something – I have no idea which – and as it didn’t appear to be life-threatening, I gave it as little acknowledgement as possible.  Unfortunately, Maisie’s not really good with no acknowledgement.

She is, however, outstanding with an acknowledgement that goes like this – “Maisie, if you leave Mummy alone and let her have a sleep in, I will buy you….. *thinks quickly* MORE SQUINKIES”.

After double-checking the arrangement – “Today, Mum? OK Mum? Yes? Yes Mum? OK Mum” – she was gone.

So what the hell is a Squinkie? Actually, it should be Squinkies, plural, because it’s not possible to buy them individually (of course it’s not).

A small selection of Maisie's haul

Squinkies are tiny squishy little characters made by one of the toy companies that advertises on all the Foxtel kids’ channels. Bastards.

You buy Squinkies in packs of either 3 or 16 which means that compared to Zhu Zhu Pets (the previous must-have toy, which are bought individually) you get more bang for your buck. The other upside is that their squishiness means that if you happen to tread on one in the dead of night, it won’t have the same crippling effect as a piece of Lego, or worse – a Shape-O Shape.

So if a pack of Squinkies was the price I had to pay for some extra kip, then I reckon it was a worthwhile investment.