Don’t worry, this isn’t an obligatory ‘we had a charming day in the snow’ post. Not that I didn’t enjoy some blogs over the last few weeks, or see some amazing pictures posted all over t’interweb showing kids in cute wellies, cheeks glowing in the cold, tableaux after tableaux of smiling through damp socks. On […]
I met blogger @meandmybigmouth for lunch a few weeks ago. It was brilliant to catch up and find a new haunt in Soho for speedy tucker. When we were chatting, he told me some of his family’s rules. I’m always fascinated by the rules other families live by, and by their traditions. It is such […]
I was prepared, if apprehensive, for school and the complex battering process of growing up my son would be entering in to. His socialisation, so to speak. I say prepared, I mean aware, aware and slightly worried about it. My lad, my lovely, naive, curious, beautiful lad with all his silliness and ghosts of toddler […]
When I was pregnant with Spider-boy I spent a lot of time thinking about Christmas even though he was a summer baby and I had barely been scanned in December. The thing was I rather felt that festive traditions could sum up your parenting techniques, aims and hopes. I still do, a bit, though in […]
Spider-boy has another way of seeing the world which, like all childish wisdom, tells you everything you need to know about our family life and deepens the mysteries of existence forever. While his brother was in hospital last week, with me, stuck in an isolation ward, Spider-boy had other engagements. As a bonafide schoolboy he […]
Depression can make you do some bloody barking things. Even afterwards, when you aren’t in the abyss. I’ve written about black dogs, and howling madness, but I find sometimes the most aggravating of all things related to mental health are the niggles, the things you can’t trust, the draw of magical thinking and other delusions, […]
Spider-boy has been shorn. A quick trim to curtail the curls tickling his eyes became a short back and sides. In a sitcom moment I both showered him in compliments and kisses whilst mouthing to thathusband: ‘What have you done to my baby?’. He looks sweet. And grown up (therein lies perhaps part of my […]
Last week, in a mad dash to get to school on time (among many other pretentious goals I’ve set myself I’m now grappling with the task of being a new person, an ‘on time’ person, when it comes to school), we got our timings wrong. So wrong that we arrived to the unpopulated playground. I […]
I was going to write a letter to my son on starting school and Oh, my little one, there is so very much to say. About how wonderful you are and how my dreams for you reach high and wide (in that I know your strengths and gifts and delicious potential). And then how they, […]
So as Spider-boy’s first day of school approaches I have a lot planned. In my usual overdrive I am very keen to have some fun with him, to enjoy our last hurrah of Mummy and Spider-boy time. We hatched a plan: to go riding on an open-topped bus tour of London. It’s hard to tell […]