âI'm Sadie, and I'm nearly nine. Mum's a childminder, but she doesn't have to mind me. I can mind myself, easy-peasy. Lucky for Mum, because now she's got the flu, so I've got to mind her â and help with all the babies!'

A hilarious, entertaining and lively account of one chaotic week in the life of a young girl whose mother is a childminder.

For the Dimwits who aren't dim at all,

but are very witty

I wonder if you used to be looked after by a child-minder while your mum went out to work? Or maybe, like Sadie in this book, your mum is a child-minder herself? I think child-minders do a wonderful job, but there's always the big problem. What happens when the child-minder gets ill? Who gets to look after all the babies?

I heard a bunch of young mums discussing this one day at a party and decided that this might make a good funny story. I had great fun inventing all the different naughty little children â and I think Nick's baby drawings are superb. I especially like the way he draws babies' hair with those little spiky bits on top (I have a similar hairstyle!).

I used to have a friend called Dominic who kept begging me to put him into one of my children's books.

“Go on, Jacky,' he'd say. âI could be an animal if you like. I could be Dominic the Dragon or Dominic the Dinosaur. Or I could be just a little tiny sweet shy animal â Dominic the Vole?”

So Sadie's little sister, Sara, loves her picture book
Dominic the Vole
and poor Sadie has to read it to her over and over again. I think Sadie's mum is very lucky to have such a kind helpful daughter.

IT'S HALF-TERM. NO
more stupid, boring, silly old school for a whole week!

Oh-oh. Maybe that's not tactful seeing as this is a school project. We've all got to keep a holiday diary. I've got to hand this in next Monday. I can't rub it out because it's written with my mum's biro and it would just make great blue smears all over the page. My baby sister Sara chewed my own pen up yesterday. My special red felt-tip pen which also doubles as a lipstick if I'm dressing up. Sara's not
got all her teeth yet but she can't half chew. She looked like Dracula with all this red ink dripping down her chin.

I felt really cross with her but that's babies for you. I get more than a bit fed up with babies sometimes. I am surrounded by them right this minute. Three-year-old Gemma
keeps pulling at my arm, wanting me to draw for her. Two-year-old Vincent is drawing himself, making horrible scribbles on the back of a paper bag. Baby Clive is having a yell because Mum's put him down for a nap and he doesn't feel like it. And Sara's sitting on my foot, bouncing up and down, wanting a ride.

They're not all my brothers and sisters. No fear. My sister Sara's quite enough to be going on with.

No, my mum's a childminder. She doesn't have to mind me. I'm Sadie and I'm nearly nine. I can mind myself, easy-peasy. I can look after Sara too. I sometimes get up in the night and give her a bottle. And I play with her and I take her out for a walk in her pushchair. I do a lot of things for my mum and all. I make her a cup of tea when she's tired and I've got this knack of massaging her feet which she loves.

âI don't know what I'd do without you, Sadie,' she says.

We don't see much of my dad nowadays, but it doesn't matter.

âUs girls will stick together, eh?' says Mum, and sometimes I climb up on her lap as well as Sara and we all have a big hug together.

I quite like my mum being a childminder because she's always there when I get home from school. The only trouble is in the holidays. Babies don't have holidays. They don't have half-terms either. Mum gets lumbered with them all the time.

If it was just Mum and me then this half-term would be great. We could go down to the shops and look round at all the clothes and the toys and choose what we'd buy if we had all the money in the world. Or we could go to the Leisure Centre and have a swim in the pool. They've got a big wave machine and all my friends say it's smashing. Or we could play that I'm a lady too and we could go and have a pot of tea and a Danish pastry each and have a good gossip in a proper restaurant. But you can't go shopping or swimming or eating when you've got four babies. My sister Sara would be bad enough. But if we've got Gemma and
Vincent and little Clive as well then it's impossible.

Nan usually helps. She acts as Mum's assistant. She's got another job working in a pub at nights but she doesn't mind giving Mum a hand too. You need lots and lots of hands with all those babies. But Nan phoned up this morning and said she couldn't make it. Grandad's off work with the flu. My grandad's like a great big baby himself. Nan's going to be busy looking after him for a few days.

âNever mind, Mum.
I'll
be your assistant,' I said. âGood job I'm off school, eh?'

So I've done my best. It hasn't been easy. Especially when we went out for a walk and called in at the corner shop. Mum uses a double buggy and I carried Sara but it was still a job carting them around. And then Sara started shrieking in the shop because she wanted Smarties, and Gemma picked a packet of jelly off the shelf and wouldn't let go, and Vincent went rushing round the corner and barged straight into a pile of toilet rolls and knocked them all over the place, and Clive yelled his head off all the time.