Category: Parenthood

An old piece I found – I think I wrote it when Frances was around 4 months old. I lie in the dark next to the baby watching her face. We’re lying on the floor of her bedroom on a single mattress, and she is snuggled up against my side. The room is dimly lit…

We had reached the stage in the recipe of adding the eggs. “Let’s put the eggs in!” I said, and took the container out of the fridge. The instant I turned to get a whisk, there was an smashing noise behind me. I spun around to see egg all over the floor, and Frances giving…

I make sporadic unsuccessful attempts to encourage my son to sleep in his own bed, because I have hitherto undiscovered reserves of mad optimism. My previous effort involved the pet fish he asked for on his last birthday. We put them in a tank in his bedroom, and I gave a long and heartfelt speech…

Six months passes a lot faster with your second child. It felt like an absolute age with my first. You’re learning how to look after a baby, second-guessing everything you do, and also adjusting to the massive change to your life; the sledgehammer of parenthood. With your second, you’re too busy to dwell on time…

Baby number 2 is three months old. It seems far longer than that, like she’s always been around, hanging out in one of my arms while I do everything else one-handed. Things I’m enjoying at 3 months: The one tiny laugh we’ve heard, a throaty “haHA” accompanied by a wide gummy grin. She’s quite a…

I make notes about the baby’s sleep patterns. When she’s had a string of bad nights I like being able to look back a week and reassure myself that she is capable of sleeping for five hours at a stretch when certain mysterious circumstances align. What those circumstances might be are between Frances and her…

My daughter was born on a full moon. This was not due to some mystical cosmic alignment, but rather to the fact that the hospital had space on that day for an elective caesarean section. Placenta previa had upended my easy pregnancy and plan for a relaxed drug-free birth, and meant that the hospital was…

Someone foolishly showed Edward the classic Women’s Weekly birthday cake book and he flicked through every single page, eyes gleaming avidly. “I would like… that one! And that one!” he said eagerly, until I informed him that birthdays were a one-cake-only kind of deal. Naturally he eventually settled on the cake that graces the cover…