SHE’S not even five months old yet but my first grandchild, Chloe, and I have fallen out for the first time. In fact, I’m appalled by her behaviour. She’s let me down badly and I’m very angry.

Don’t get me wrong, she’s very cute, her smiles are magical and her soft, fuzzy little head has a gorgeous smell when you nuzzle it.

But here’s the rub – I received an excited text from her dad the other day, saying: “Hey, guess what? Chloe slept through for the first time. Got a full night’s sleep!”

I think he anticipated me sharing in his joy. He probably expected me to do cartwheels and sent him a text back, saying: “That’s brilliant, really pleased for you son.” But he didn’t get one.

A full night’s sleep after five months? That’s not fair. It took him two bloody years before he stopped waking up every two hours through the night. He put me and his mum through hell. We had to take it in shifts to get any sleep.

Night after night, I’d end up downstairs in the early hours, watching that Winnie The Pooh, The Blustery Day video over and over again. Noddy and Big Ears gave me occasional respite but we usually had revert back to Winnie The Pooh.

Sometimes, there was nothing else for it but to go for a night-time drive because the motion of the car and the theme music from Neighbours was the only thing that would get him back to sleep. (My wife watched the Aussie soap a lot when she was pregnant.) When the CD with the music got lost, I had to sing it while I was driving.

I was so tired the next day, I’d sometimes nod off at work, with my head resting on my typewriter (it was a long time ago). I used to walk into lamp-posts and snap at strangers who got in my way. Rings under my eyes turned so black that they’d dubbed me Peter Panda and Chi Chi in the office. The rings have never gone away. They’re etched into my face. I’m permanently disfigured.

In short, he made our first two years of parenthood brain-fuddling, energy-sapping, unforgettable torture.

So, in the light of all that, what the hell do you think you’re playing at, Chloe? Five months is far too soon to let him off the hook. This is pay-back time. He deserves to suffer a lot more than that.

When she came round with her mum and dad for Sunday lunch, we had a little talk. I sat her on my knee and told her: “Now look here, Chloe. You’re very cute but sleeping through this early simply isn’t good enough – you need to buck your ideas up.”

She gave me one of her magic smiles and I think I might have spotted the first signs of her teeth coming through. What splendid news.

THE THINGS THEY SAY

THANKS to Chris Orton, of Durham, who wrote to tell me about the question he’d just been asked by his six-year-old son Sam: “Daddy, is there a film called Pink Knobs and Broomsticks?”

SPEAKING to Northallerton U3A the other day, chairman Dorothy Welburn reminded me of a “Things they say” I published years ago but I think it bears repeating.

Daughter Jane, who’s now grown up and lives in New Zealand, was a little girl when she asked: “Daddy, you know there’s a manhole in the garage? Well, does Mummy have a ladyhole?”

MOLLY, six, asked her dad Colin, in Darlington, if she could go out into the garden to play.

“No, the grass is still too wet,” he told her.

“Well, I’ll use the hair-dryer,” came the reply.