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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
3rd January 2019 Dear Cooper and Finn,
We’re driving home soon. Gran Jan says she’s going to miss us very much. I’m really going to miss her too. We’ve been staying at a holiday cottage two doors down from her and grandad, and it’s so nice to be able to pop in and see each other. That’s one thing I really miss — where we live we don’t have any friends or family nearby to just pop in and see, or who can pop in and see us. We have to plan things weeks in advance and then reschedule a few times before we see each other. Whenever it’s time to go home, I find myself wishing we could start the visit all over again — so I could enjoy the time with the people I love all over again, but also so I could appreciate it more, and snap and snipe less. So I could be my best self the whole time and not waste a single second of this precious time. The time I wish for so hard when I'm not with my family, but which never runs quite as smoothly when I'm with them as it did in my head when I wished for it. But I try not to think like that too much. We had a lovely time, we all love each other, and we understand that we can't all be on top form all of the time, not even you two. XXX
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
Dear Cooper and Finn
25th December 2018 Dear Cooper and Finn, It's here, your first Christmas! We all wore our festive jumpers, and by some Christmas miracle, all the baubles on the tree remained intact. We had a quiet day, but it was most definitely not chilled. No day ever is now you two are here. Although we really missed seeing family and friends, it felt really nice not to spend the day driving round and visiting everyone, never really able to relax because we're always thinking about where we need to be next. We gave you a ride-on tiger and ladybird, a telephone with eyes on wheels, and a dancing robot called Beatbo. Then we popped round to our neighbours’
house for a couple of glasses of prosecco and left once you'd knocked one over each. Dinner was at about 4pm, after your second nap of the day. We had roast turkey, pigs in blankets, mashed potato, roast potato, cauliflower cheese, mashed turnip, carrots, broccoli, stuffing balls, mint sauce, and lingonberry jam. We thought you'd eaten loods but then we found it all under the table afterwards. Then we watched Arthur Christmas, put you in the bath and to bed, and your dad and I flopped on the sofa, wondering where the day had gone and why we were so tired. xxx
Dear Cooper and Finn
24th December 2018 Dear Cooper and Finn, It's Christmas Eve! One of my favourite days of the year. I think I like it even more than Christmas Day. For me it's a day without pressure. A day of quiet anticipation before the big day. A day of looking forward to something, which is an incredibly enjoyable experience in itself. I haven't worked on Christmas Eve for a few years now, but I have done many times. First at the chip shop in Frosterley. Then at the Centre for Life in Newcastle where someone once told me I'd ruined Christmas for his 8-year-old daughter because we had to tell people who tried to join the queue when we were close to closing that they wouldn't be able to go ice skating. And one year when I was working from home at mam and dad's house as a People's Champion for innocent smoothies, an angry customer phoned me at 4.03pm and demanded that I trudge to the postbox through the snow to post her some smoothie vouchers. But not today, thankfully. I'm just sitting at home, enjoying the day with you and your dad, thinking about what to watch and eat next. If I was seventeen again again, I'd be getting ready to go out down Crook tonight, wearing a dress and no coat even in the snow. I’d jump around and shout along to All I want for Christmas is you, have a few Taboo and lemonades, and get chips, cheese and garlic sauce before click-clacking across the cobbles in my silver satin kitten heels across the cobbles to dad's car. (Thanks dad.) xxx
Dear Cooper and Finn
20th December 2018 Dear Cooper and Finn, Here are some of the things I love about you. I love how you shout incoherent babble at us with such conviction, like you’d be shocked to discover we have no idea what you're saying. I love how your faces light up when you see something you've never seen before and you try to work out what it is. I love the ‘thud thud thud’ sound you make as you crawl around, and how you come to the door and pause while you look around to see where the action is, and then head straight for it. I love how when I come into your room in the morning and after your naps you're both standing up, smiling, ready to go again. I also really love it when you're asleep. X X X
Dear Cooper and Finn
17th December 2018 Dear Cooper and Finn, I'm so excited for Christmas now. It'll be the first time we've ever spent Christmas Day at home, just the four of us, and I can't wait to start our own traditions. And by that I mean force you to do all the things I want to do and eat the things I want to eat, and if you try to resist say "but it's Christmas” with sad eyes. I used to love it when we got the Christmas food in the house. Food we never had at any other time of the year. There’d be a twelve-pack of Pepsi, a pretzel snack tray, Bombay mix, Shloer, honey roasted cashews, Twiglets, satsumas, mince pies, Celebrations, After Eights, and Chocolate Orange. I'd wake up to a pillowcase of presents from Santa, then we’d take it in turns to open the presents from under the tree, then dad and I would stuff our faces with chocolate and Twiglets and mince pies as mam repeatedly told us to stop eating because we'd spoil our our dinner (she was right). We'd watch Carols from Kings, The Snowman, and the Top of the Pops Christmas special, and I'd record the best films on the brand new videotapes dad's friend Sandy always bought me. I hope you love Christmas Day as much as I do. X X X
Dear Cooper and Finn
16th December 2018 Dear Cooper and Finn, I've just got home from Christmas lunch with my friends, and my belly and my heart are full. We call ourselves Belfast because years ago we set up a WhatsApp group to arrange a trip to Belfast that I didn't end up going on. It was such a lovely afternoon. We ate delicious bread, dips, barbecued meat and chips, drank champagne and wine, and sang Christmas songs from printed sheets. It was the kind of afternoon you wish you could have every week, but you know you wouldn't enjoy as much if you did. XXX
Dear Cooper and Finn
14th December 2018 Dear Cooper and Finn, I’m on my way home! Every time I think about seeing your little faces and squeezing and squeezing squeezing you and kissing and kissing and kissing you I get a little bit giddy. Looking at photos of you on my phone and smiling to myself will have to do until I get to see the real thing. Can't wait! Apologies in advance for the onslaught of love you're about to receive! I've got a whole week's worth to let out. XXX
Dear Cooper and Finn
9th December 2018
Dear Cooper and Finn, I've just landed in San Jose, California. It's 11:49 pm your time. It's crazy that it's still the same day and I'm halfway around the world. I miss you! I'm just remembering what you feel like in my arms. I know the exact weight. The exact warmth. The exact softness. I know how you breathe and how your heart beats and how you burble away at nothing in particular. Just thinking about all this is making me smile. See you soon, lads. XXX
Dear Cooper and Finn
5th December 2018
Dear Cooper and Finn, It's been so lovely to wander around in short sleeves in December. When it's sunny and warm enough to not have to wear a coat, there's one less thing weighing me down. Movements feel easier, freer. And somehow thoughts do too. I was talking to your dad about whether he’d like to live somewhere that's warm in the winter, but he says he likes the winters we have at home. I do too. I love the crisp, fresh, clear days that feel so bright and sharp that it comes as a shock. And I love how it feels inside when it's gloomy and miserable outside. I like the seasons. I like change. xxx