It is date night. This is as rare as me going for a ten mile run at the moment. It has been in the diary for some time, bobbing valiantly in a sea of infant vaccination appointments and playdates but now it’s here. We are just going to the local pub and getting a babysitter. We will be back by 10.30pm. …
Eva has spurned nappies and potties. However, she still can’t recognise the ‘tingling in her bottom’ before it’s too late, so we are, literally, treading carefully. I heave the behemoth of a Pampers box through the door (thank you Amazon Prime) and am stopped two steps in by Eva, who is wearing her singing dress. “Mummy, what you do-hoo-hoo-ing?” she …
“Mummy, we do live on the Earth planet.” Thursday morning, -1 degree. It is treacherously icy. My chest is a snuggly advertisement for Baby Gap’s winter range as we toddle to the childminder’s. Tom (4 months) is in the sling, Eva (2.5yrs) is holding my hand and some toast as she was a bit slow eating breakfast and NL (Bear, …
We are going to a New Year’s Eve drinks party at my aunt’s house, deep in the countryside. It is, of course, a lunchtime drinks party, because we have children. Eva is asleep, having worn herself out playing ‘Dr Jesson’ (the name of our real doctor) and sticking her hand up my top to check my heartbeat 6,743 times before …
It is now four days since Christmas and the matter of thank you letters cannot be ignored. “All children write thank you letters, and you are very lucky to have presents to be thankful for,” I say with authority, though I doubt this is true. “But … I am two,” says Eva, correctly. “I will write them and you can …
It is 5.38am. I am tapping on my tablet with one hand whilst the other is poorly supporting a slurping Tom at my right breast. “She wore brown tweed to Sandringham yesterday,” I murmer, mainly to myself. Karl yawns and claws at the the rigging of Tom’s blanket as I have all the duvet. “But she left the children at home. …
