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Dear Cooper and Finn
25th February 2019
Dear Cooper and Finn,
We walked to the park this afternoon (well, I did, you two just sat back and enjoyed the view and moaned at me whenever I slowed down — you're pretty heavy now FYI). I pushed you both on the swings and you squealed and giggled and had that look on your faces like you can't believe the swings were free because surely if people knew how amazing they were they’d be on them all the time, so you try and hold in your glee so that other people don't catch on and you get to keep swinging forever. Except you can't swing forever, and when the time came to lift you out and put you in your pushchair to go home, you cried and looked at me like I was the meanest person in the whole wide world. And I felt terrible. (Nor terrible enough to let you keep swinging though.) If you could talk, you'd have said you wanted to stay on the swings and asked why we had to leave. And I’d have said something very boring and adult like 'Well it would be lovely to just swing on swings all day but sadly life doesn't work like that and we need to get home so you can throw food all over the floor for half an hour sorry I mean eat your tea and go to bed.’ And then we'd have entered into a negotiation and you'd have won an extra 3 minutes and 47 seconds of swing time because I am weak. But you can't talk yet, so I am making the most of being able to just put you back in your pushchair and take you home without an argument. As always, you have got me thinking about why we can't just swing on swings all day. And when you're 47 and I feel ok about leaving you in the park by yourself, you're welcome to do that if you want. Although you probably won't, because you'll have discovered lots of other things you enjoy by then. And it is important to spend time doing the things you enjoy and not always worry about getting home in time for tea. But if everyone just swang on swings all day, who would make the swings? XXX
Dear Cooper and Finn
23rd February 2019
Dear Cooper and Finn,
It was our friend Alfie's first birthday party today! You went straight for the washing machine because you already know that that all the cool people hang out in the kitchen at parties. Then you took a bite out of few sausage rolls and tried to go up the stairs about twenty times, and then we had to leave because your dad had to go to work. He dropped us off at Battersea Park. I got a bit frustrated while we were there because it was really busy and I just felt like I couldn't move without being in someone's way (a common feeling with a double buggy). But then on the way home a man was cycling towards us absolutely beaming, and he just shouted " LOVELY " at you both and it so was. xxx
Dear Cooper and Finn
22nd February 2019
Dear Cooper and Finn,
It's the first day this year we haven't needed our coats, which always makes me feel good. It makes the day so much easier to move through. Makes my bones feel lighter and my arms swing easier. Also this first-day-without-a-coat is earlier than I ever remember it being. And as I'm writing this i'm thinking about you reading it 50 years from now after a climate disaster, completely aghast that I ever thought it was ok to laugh about not needing a coat in February.
We went to the park so we could meet your dad on his way home from work, which is the highlight of my day at the moment. Your dad snuck up behind behind you while you were on the swings like he always does, and I love to watch your little faces as you try to work out how he got here. You're always so delighted. X X X
Dear Cooper and Finn
20th February 2019
Dear Cooper and Finn,
You both woke up screaming at 2.45am, not feeling well after your vaccinations. And while I'm sorry you were feeling bad, I was honestly thrilled at the chance to comfort you. Your dad and I took you into our bed and sang The Wheels on the Bus complete with lions, dinosaurs and dragons (roars are your favourite thing right now), and being able to cheer you up and make you laugh and see you look up at us with your tiny tear-streaked faces and shiny eyes was very, very special. XXX
Dear Cooper and Finn
13th February 2019
Dear Cooper and Finn,
It's 11.49pm and I just went to put something in your room. I didn't have to do it now, but I wanted to see you breathing. I wanted to watch your chests rise and fall and see the curve of your noses and your little lips sticking out. And now I'm lying in bed trying to make sure I never ever forget this wonderful feeling of sharing a life and a space with you both. And wondering if I appreciate you enough and whether I'm enjoying this enough and whether you're getting the best of me. I'm trying my best. I hope it shows. xxx
Dear Cooper and Finn
4th February 2019
Dear Cooper and Finn,
It's your dad's birthday today, so we did exactly what he wanted to do, which is not get dressed up and not go out. So we had pizza and sat on the sofa, and that was just fine by him. XXX
Dear Cooper and Finn
2nd February 2019
Dear Cooper and Finn,
It's ten past midnight, I’ve just finished work, and I'm tired. It's Saturday tomorrow and old me would have probably had a little lie in until 8.30 then pottered about making breakfast and endless cups of tea while reading the magazine bit of the newspaper. But lie-ins don't happen anymore. Nor does pottering, either. Nowadays I just charge to and from the washing machine, showering you all with stray socks as I go. I'm not going to lie and say I don't miss lie-ins and pottering, because I really, really do. But I’m smiling now just thinking about seeing your little faces in the morning. I love hearing you chat to each other in the morning, then walking into your room and seeing you smile up at me through barely open eyes. I love how warm you are when I pick you up to get you ready, and how soft your cheeks feel against mine. I love the sound of your snuffling and burbling and watching you come to life and get ready for another day of discovery. I'm not so keen on the contents of your nappy or the way you pull my hair and grab my cheeks. And having to chase you around the bedroom to put your trousers on can be a little tiresome. But all things considered, it's a pretty great way to start the day. Just try not to throw too much porridge around tomorrow, ok? XXX
Dear Cooper and Finn
21st January 2019
Dear Cooper and Finn,
It's my birthday today! I'm 34 years old. It feels important to tell you that I guess because the age of my parents felt so important when I was younger. Mam was 39 when she had me and dad was 41, which made them the oldest parents at my school by quite a stretch. I suspected my friend's parents were a similar age, but when I asked her to find out she came back the next day and said they were both 24.
We got dressed up and went for a fancy meal tonight (well I got dressed up, your dad just moaned about having to wear proper shoes) and it was lovely. It was exactly what I wanted to do, which is exactly what should happen on your birthday. x x x
Dear Cooper and Finn
20th January 2019
Dear Cooper and Finn,
You are one! We took you to Franco Manca for tea wearing old-man checky shirts that were at least a size too big, like the ones the lads used to wear on nights out when I was 15. You sucked the topping off each slice of pizza before chucking the rest on the floor, and had your first ever apple juice, ice cream, and cake. We sang Happy Birthday to you both, which you seemed to enjoy, and reflected on the most amazing year of our lives. My previous most amazing year was 2012, when I held a piece of a fibreglass replica of John Lennon's face in the London 2012 Olympic closing ceremony. And after that it was 2014, when your dad and I got married. Your dad can't remember what his favourite years were, but a few days after you were born I asked him if he was happy and he said it was the best thing he’d ever done after marrying me (not that he really did much). So thank you for being here. Thank you for teaching me to look at the world more closely, and to find joy in smaller things. And also to be present in the moment rather than always thinking of the next thing, because I don't want to miss a bit of you. I love you. X X X
Dear Cooper and Finn
19th January 2019
Dear Cooper and Finn,
We had a little party for your first birthday today. Unfortunately most of your little friends were ill and couldn't come, but it was lovely nonetheless. I spent a very long time icing a cake that looked distinctly amateur (shout out to the disgruntled fondant duck) and making a balloon rainbow from a kit that was fundamentally flawed, but I wouldn't have it any other way. You wore personalised coordinating loungewear, I wore a sparkly leopard print jumper, your dad wore a polo shirt, as always. We all ate egg mayo sandwiches, cheesy puffs, and Rice Krispie cakes. And at the end of a lovely day, you drank your milk on the living room floor while me and my friends drank prosecco and took selfies with you. XXX
Dear Cooper and Finn
17th January 2019
Dear Cooper and Finn,
I've been wanting to write and create some things for a while, but other stuff keeps getting in the way. So one of my aims for this year is to make time for the things I really want to do. I don't have time to do much outside of work and being with you, but it there's something that's really important to me — something I feel like I need to do in order to feel like me, then I'm going to make it happen. I'm going to ask myself what things I'd regret not doing if I died tomorrow (morbid but effective). When I worked at innocent, the founders Rich, Adam and Jon used to talk about the ' Eastenders test’. They said that if you were really serious about setting up your own business, then you had to want to work on that in the evenings, instead of watching Eastenders (or Real Housewives in my case, although the joy of Real Housewives is that you can have it on in the background while you work on your other dreams and not really miss much). Some other great advice is that if you want do something, instead of thinking about how much you want to do it and feeling sad that you don’t have the time, you should just start doing it. Even if you only get to do a tiny bit. Just start. Don't think about all the things in your way and how hard it's going to be. Get cracking, and work all that out as you go. The important thing is to start, and keep going. Xxx
Dear Cooper and Finn
16th January 2019
Dear Cooper and Finn,
You both just smiled at me and then I smiled back. And then I wondered if I’d actually smiled first, and you'd smiled back. But it doesn't matter who started it. when you put joy out into the world, you get joy back. xxx
Dear Cooper and Finn
14th January 2019
Dear Cooper and Finn,
You just waved at us! You were sitting in the bath and when you looked up at me and your dad you both started waving, and we felt the most wonderful jolt of excitement between us. It's so special when that happens - when you get to feel the joy of an extraordinary feeling, and then the extra joy of knowing that someone you love felt the exact same thing at the exact same time. Xxx
Dear Cooper and Finn
13th January 2019
Dear Cooper and Finn,
We got home today from a lovely weekend in Southwold with our friends Heli and Mark. Your dad and I met Heli years ago when we went to V Festival with our other friends Annabel and Craig, who’d persuaded your dad to buy the tickets at around four times face value from a resale site when we had a party at his mam and dad's house while they were away. It turned out to be one of the best decisions he's ever made - we had years of fun at that festival with so many friends. We spent Saturday afternoon drinking champagne and talking fast and loud like you do when you haven't seen people ..love for a while. You want to fill each other in on the essentials, but you know you don't have to say everything that's happened since you last saw each other. You can just pick up and carry on in the present, and fill in the gaps when you need to. You two were thrilled at the change in surroundings and all the open space and spent the whole time crawling round and round the kitchen table and up and down the hallway. You were also enchanted by the dogs, Meg and Kosmo, and did everything you could to make them love you. In the evening Mark served us up his famous beer and Guinness stew. We've loved it in the past but sadly this time he'd made it with gone-off suet and it tasted a little rancid. It turned out to be a great test of the limits of politeness, anyway. Heli piped up straight away and told him it was absolutely vile. I kept mumbling that it wasn't so bad really and ate about a third of it. And your dad insisted it was absolutely delicious and ate the whole thing (which worringly I think is more a reflection on his taste buds than his manners). Before we left today we had a bracing walk on the beach and the most delicious fish and chips at the Sole Bay Fish company. I was a bit worried about eating in but far from making the other diners hate us, you actually managed to charm them! Thanks lads. XXX
Dear Cooper and Finn
6th January 2019
Dear Cooper and Finn,
I'm really sorry I just got annoyed with you. It's just I spent quite a bit of time this morning making falatel for you when I could have been watching Luther, so watching you squish them mischievously under your pudgy little palms then fling them on the floor made me a little upset. It wouldn't have been so bad, but in an effort to be organised last night I made and froze a few omelettes which are your second favourite food in the world ever. Except apparently they're not, anymore. Still you seem to love the muffins l accidentally cooked for twenty minutes too long until they were dry as the desert. Fingers crossed you still like fish fingers. XXX
Dear Cooper and Finn
6th January 2019 Dear Cooper and Finn, One thing I wasn't really prepared for is how hard it is to do things with you. Obviously I knew I wouldn't be going to fancy restaurants and bars, and I knew that just getting out the house would be hard because of all the things we'd have to do to get ready. But I didn't think about precisely how many individual tasks would be involved, and how uniquely challenging each one would be, and what it would feel like to do every single one of those tasks twice, for two uniquely challenging individuals. I wrote a little guide to going to the park today, just so I could remember it.
How to take the kids to the park:
1. Wrestle them into coats and hats, put them somewhere safe, and put on your coat 2. Open front door, go back for pushchair and carry it through the hall, taking care not to gouge holes in the walls or whack the kids round the head as you go 3. Run down steps with pushchair and erect it 4. Go back for one child, reassuring the other one that you're not leaving them alone forever 5. Carry first child down steps and put in pushchair 6. Repeat for child two
7. Go back and lock door
8. Realise you've forgotten your phone/water/changing bag/soul 9. WHY DID YOU PUT YOUR COAT ON YOU’RE ON FIRE 10. It's actually pretty dark now 11. Go to bed?
Dear Cooper and Finn
2nd January 2019 Dear Cooper and Finn, I was putting my pyjamas on tonight and your sock was caught in the leg, which reminded me of one of my most embarrassing moments ever, when I was walking down the street and yesterday's pants fell out of my trouser leg and onto the pavement. X X X
Dear Cooper and Finn
1st January 2019 Dear Cooper and Finn, I went to bed at 11.11pm last night. I felt a bit lame and like I'd let myself down by not making it to midnight on New Year's Eve, but then I remembered I don't really care and made the most of the extra 49 minutes of sleep. This year I want to cram less in to our days. To be present in the moment and not always thinking of the next thing. And to not just see things as tasks to be ticked off. Oh and to stop getting quite so ratty at your dad. X X X
Dear Cooper and Finn
30th December 2018 Dear Cooper and Finn, We've been at home in Weardale for a few days now, and it's been lovely. We had Christmas Day number 2 with gran Jan and grandad George on Friday, and we all wore paper Christmas hats and watched you wipe food around your mouths before throwing it on the floor. Then you opened your presents - some great ones, like the musical instruments and the toy cars- and some not quite so great ones, like the whale shape sorter and an assortment of other odd gifts from the £5 shop that looked like bargains on the surface, but once opened revealed fundamental design flaws. Like the fake Tamagotchi I got from Penrith market when I was twelve, which died on day 7 every time, no matter what. Then on Sunday we had our third Christmas Day of the year with grandma Hazel and granda Geoff, and aunty Gemma, uncle Alan, and cousin Freya. We had the full works all over again, and it was chaos in the best way, because we were all so grateful to have ach other there. It was also pretty stressful - you can be grateful for something and get annoyed by it at the same time. That's just life. X X X
Dear Cooper and Finn
26th December 2018 Dear Cooper and Finn, It's Boxing Day! Another of my favourite days of the year. A day for lying on the sofa, watching comfort TV, and eating chocolates and leftover sandwiches. We watched the Snowman and The Snowdog and I cried like I do every year. Then we packed our stuff to take home tomorrow. I can't wait to see everyone, but I could have done without having to pack today. Sometimes it feels like I spend my whole life getting ready for the next thing. I'd like to try and enjoy the moment a little longer. XXX