John Pidge Reporting For Duty

We are very lucky to have a large garden, which has meant that we really have stayed at home for the last three weeks. Hearth-Father has done our shopping, and I have taken the dog for a short walk most days.

The kids actually haven't been anywhere at all since schools closed. Gilby came with me on a short dog walk for the first time in the week and returned home boasting to his siblings, 'I've walked on actual pavement!'

So life beats to a far gentler rhythm. But there have been some home improvements. Or at least some gardeny ones: the lockdown has thus far generated a new garage roof, a revitalised rockery and a reseeded garden lawn. 

(The proposed 'deep clean' of the house room by room has temporarily been put on hold due to inclement weather. Inclement weather for cleaning the house, that is - it's been glorious in sunny Sussex, so all activities have been directed outside. Not complaining.)

But the pigeons, it has to be said, are no great respectors of a reseeded lawn. In fact, given the numbers in which they are congregating (with no regard whatsoever for social distancing), I can only conclude that it must simply look like a luxury banquet of the pigeon variety. We have had trouble keeping them off and trouble keeping Hearth-Father calm as he sees his work undone and flaps around the garden chasing them off.

Enter John Pidge, as our scarecrow has been affectionately named.

Although he may display a 'touch of the Isadora Duncans' as one FB friend kindly put it, he did take a morning's enthusiastic creating and was installed at around midday yesterday.

And Hearth-Father has just returned from his morning pitch inspection with a broad smile and a thumbs up, so our new family member must be doing his job. 'Outstanding,' is the verdict.

Currently reading:  Can you ever forgive me? Memoirs of a Literary Forger by Lee Israel. 

Human, or Dancer

At a recent dance performance I failed to recognise my own daughter when we poked our heads backstage to wish her luck.

I only knew it was she since I got a dismissive finger wave from a mascara-clad, crimped, sequinned, gum-chewing pre-teen that I assumed must be her - as we backed hurriedly out of the room.

On stage, I recognised her from her dance steps rather than her face.

And whilst I was proud of her younger brother dancing with all the big kids, it was pointed out to me that he more resembles a table football peg than a boy:

Currently reading: Bookworm by Lucy Mangan

From In The Navy To Being Marooned

Today was a big day: Gertie's transition from primary to secondary school.

I don't think I got upset back when any of the kids first started in reception. I was happy that they didn't cry and actually wanted to go, and I don't remember it being hard to deal with. In fact, each time one of them started school I actually think I was happy to have reduced the nursery bill. And when Eddie went to school and the kiddivoucher payments finally stopped so that I was back to full salary, it was brilliant.

And I was working at the end of last term so I didn't get to do all the end of year assembly stuff that they do to mark the end of primary school. Hearth father went and found it all a little bit emosh, but it all sort of passed me by. I was pleased that at 'prom' she still wanted a quite girly dress, unlike some of her friends who looked far too sexy for eleven. She looked beautiful and grown up and dignified.

But this morning was a big deal. For her, it definitely was. All her clothes were laid out the night before. There was a lot of preparation. I got a big squeezy cuddle behind closed doors but a cool blown kiss once we were in the street and I fear that is how it will be from now on. I didn't expect it to be quite such a big deal for me though, to feel quite so emotional this morning; it kind of hit me from nowhere: My little girl is really grown up and confidently moving on.

I took her for an ice cream at the end of the day though.

School Uniform: The Holy Grail

Smashing parenting today!

This comes with an exclamation mark as it is not a claim I am often able to make. Did I say 'often'? I meant 'ever'. But today is the day.

Let me explain. We are in the final days of the summer holidays and so comes the inevitable uniform buying, gathering, labelling nightmare.

Gertie is going to secondary school which means that she is starting from scratch. Blazer, two polo shirts and the skirt come to eighty quid, and we haven't got as far as shoes or PE kit yet, so this time of year is laden with expense as well as stress. 

The boys won't stop growing, and although Eddie, being number three, essentially lives in hand-me-downs, there is still an awful lot of 'naming' to be done on uniform. This has always filled me with horror. I am not a lover of sewing. The iron-in labels are fiddly and horrible. A biro doesn't quite cut it in the leafy lanes of rural West Sussex. It takes hours and I hate it. Usually. 

But finally, after eleven years of parenting I have made an investment and found the answer. The philosopher's stone, the Holy Grail. It is transformative. Totally life-changing.

This is so not a sponsored post as I am simply not important enough to do that, so I shall refrain from naming the company involved. It wasn't cheap because I had to buy three of them. But I can now stamp their names on to their uniform, This makes it fun. 

Even Gilby's socks have received the treatment. Yes, his socks! Look:

I know. Go me, go me, go me.

Best £44 I have ever spent!

Currently reading:

This is going to hurt by Adam Kay

Girlfriends and Gambling

Eddie had a night out with his 'girlfriend' last weekend.

Yes, Eddie is six.

It gets worse: They went (with her family) to Goodwood and enjoyed an evening of racing. Ahem.  So, he's starting young with the women and gambling. I entrusted five pounds to the care of  Isla's parents so that they could place some bets.

Eddie, of course, won on the first race. £7. So ten minutes in and he has more than doubled his money. Uh oh. He loses on every other race of the night, but is still 'up' at the end. He comes home lofting a precious five pound note high in the air.

"Look at the money I won!" he says.

"And where's the five pounds that Mum gave you to start with?"

"Isla's parents have that. You'll have to ask them. This bit's mine. I won it."

Right.

He had two very late nights in a row. (Well, it's still the summer holidays...) because the following evening he was at a family party. He came home shattered, and, relenting for once, I cuddled him up the stairs to bed. 

"You said I was too heavy to carry up the stairs any more..." he observed, sleepily, cheek pressed into my shoulder.

"Well, just this once, as you are so exhausted," I soothed.

"Yes, I'm much lighter when I'm tired, aren't I?"

Can't fault this boy's logic.




Currently reading: Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh

The Last Lap

Eddie sat on my lap this morning, unprompted, to read a book and do a puzzle. He just tapped my legs for me to  uncross them and climbed up. It was a nice feeling and it suddenly occurred to me that it had been the first time he has done that for a while. I breathed in the still-babyish smell at the back of his neck greedily. He probably thinks that his mother is a weirdo.

He turns seven at the end of September, but has always been much littler than his siblings were at the same age, so he still gets carried up to bed sometimes, or picked up towards the end of a long walk. I wasn't physically able to carry Gertie or Gilby at the same age. It has been a long, long time since one of them sat on my lap. So it strikes me that I am on the countdown for lap-sitting. 

I hope that wasn't the last one.

Bouncing

I'm putting these two photographs together because they are two separate but connected memories that I felt compelled to revisit and write about again:


I hold your hand.

You aren't sure about this. You don't like the sand clinging to your socks. It bothers your sense of order and rightness. And the mountainous heights of the bouncy pillow are intimidating. But you do want the fun, or the promise of it, and so you are quite determined as you reach for the brightly coloured fabric.

We climb up together. I have to haul you up the steep last part because you can't keep your balance. We don't bounce, as such. I tread carefully until you wobble a little and giggle, and then I run faster; chasing you and bouncing you until you shriek. Another little girl gets on. She is tentative like you but you are now the strong, experienced one and you let her find her feet on the bouncy pillow and then you become her big friendly bouncer and you both laugh and shout and tumble and stumble and pick each other up when you collapse, limbs knotted, flopping in helpless laughter.

The rhythm changes; the game changes. Somehow, you both instinctively know the rules without stating them. Whose turn to run, whose turn to chase, who is leading and who is following. Two perfect strangers enjoying the perfect bounce.

Eventually it must end: the bouncing as though your childhood depended on it.

“Goodbye,” you say, to your new buddy. “It was nice bouncing with you.”

She nods, solemnly. “You too. Bye bouncy friend.”

And you walk in different directions.

I help you put your shoes back on. You don't seem to mind the sand now. I marvel at the ease of a friendship between three-year-olds that only needs a shared passion for buoyancy.

We return regularly. It is a few years later. Now you have have progressed to the giant bouncy pillow and it is energetic and competitive. We still hold hands but only to see who is bouncing highest. You win. You weigh nothing, you walk on air anyway, and l...I am carry too many pounds and worried about my pelvic floor. Click. The mobile phone captures the moment. I frame it. On the wall and in my heart.

‘Nice bouncing with you,’ I say, all the time learning.






Currently reading: Five Rivers Met on a Wooded Plain by Barney Norris

Future Careers

Gertie has announced, from the lofty position of Year 6, that she would like to be a 'human rights' lawyer.

I think she might be actually be headed into discrimination and gender equality law. This term's topic at school is 'Explorers', and asked to choose from the list of famous explorer names on the board one to research independently, she immediately raised her hand and asked why they were all male.

Then, this afternoon I went to pick her up from 'Girls' Football' club after school. I wondered why she looked completely dry given the drizzle. 'Oh no, we played in the hall because it was wet. We can't play outside when it is wet because we only do football on the playground, not on the field.' I enquired as to whether this was the same for the boys.

'No. But don't worry, Mum, I'm already planning to raise it at school council next week...' 🙂

Still we've come a long way since the Intelligent Parents' Manual of 1944, where I have reached this little gem: 

Currently reading: All That Man Is by David Szalay

Little Mix Up

I thought that, with all the children now settled at school, we had passed the point of major milestones but Gertie achieved one last night with her first 'gig'. We went, (along with most of the primary-aged girls in Sussex) to see Little Mix at Ardingly. Someone was VERY excited about the prospect.

Her mother was, well, less so.

Preparations were extensive: the choosing of the outfit, the hair, the earrings. And of course we bought the t-shirt, which was modeled immediately:

It was a nightmare getting in and out of the ground, and we ended up spending longer in the car park afterwards than the band actually played for; but, logistical gripes aside, I enjoyed the whole thing much more than I thought I would, and mostly I enjoyed Gertie's joy in the whole experience. We went with two of her friends and they danced and screamed and hugged each other all night long.

With all that car park time to kill, the post mortem was extensive, and involved the three girls reliving every word to every song. Which was nice. But Gertie wished that she could have bought one of the lanyards designed to look like a back-stage pass. I pointed out that I'd needed to remortgage to cover the cost of food and their soft drinks, AND she'd got a t-shirt.

"But Jess went to see The Next Step Live and she got a sweat-shirt, a t-shirt, a programme and one of the necklace things," she pouted.

"Lanyard," I muttered, correcting her, and the conversation changed.

Except that, a few minutes later they were discussing another friend of theirs that they thought was a bit spoilt, and I heard one of them say, 'Yeah, she's such a lanyard...'

Hoping for an entry in the next OED.


Currently reading: To Miss With Love by Katharine Birbalsingh

Tables Turning

We've just returned from our summer holiday in the south of France.  For the fifth consecutive year we've been to the same place - a practice that I previously believed, given that big wide world out there, existed as the preserve of the old and the boring. But the house is beautiful, the restaurants and local markets endearingly familiar, the pool is perfect and the kids have everything they need. The house is also large enough for lots of people and so there are a different cast of characters each time. And so we keep going back.

Swinging in Uzes

While we were there Gilby turned six, and, to celebrate, we went to Aqualand (just as we did last year, but don't judge...).  Having traversed all the slides before, I was quite happy to swap the adrenaline rush for a sun-lounger and a book this year. (Who said old and boring?) I could 'plot up' in peace, and be the repository for bags and towels, and the supplier of sunscreen as required.

My sis and Gertie on 'The Wave'. Been there, done that.

At lunch, I mentioned that I might like to go on something before the day was out.  At which Gilby slung a protective arm around my shoulders, conspiratorially whispering that he thought I'd like the 'Surf Rider' and the 'Tornado'. "Yep, you'll love them, Mum. I'll take you on there. Follow me, I'll show you what to do..." He may even have patted my arm.

It was lovely to see him so confident and assured and grown up.

And yet, bittersweet.

I can't help thinking that this is the beginning of the end in a gradual process of role reversal as he begins to lead me rather than the other way round.

Gilby standing tall

So it was a relief when he was dependent on me to steer and paddle and generally get us out of trouble kayaking on the Gard a few days later.

He does need Mummy for a little while longer, after all.



Currently reading: A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry

Things That Go Bang In The Night

No blog post in over a month!  Must try harder.

Bonfire night means that fireworks are out in full force.  I'm a big fan of them: I wanted them at my 40th birthday party that never was.  Perhaps I'll get them for my 50th. They are stunning, frivolous and fully deserving of the oohs and aahs they provoke.  Dark history aside they are reminders of childhood and symbols of celebration.

So I found it quite distressing when child after child of mine didn't like them.  Successively they screamed and shouted and crumbled in fear.  We kept trying.  Each year we have attended a number of displays, and taken it in turns to leap for safety.  Hearth-father spent last year's display cuddling tear-streaked cowerers in the cricket changing room at the local sports ground. (My turn to enjoy the rockets and Catherine wheels and bangers.)

Ear defenders, bribery and bullying have all failed in the past, but we persevere nevertheless.

And this year we accidentally hit on the magic formula to make it all work.

We separated them.

Gertie was with a school friend, and accidentally Hearth-father and I got split up in the crowd so that we had one each.  They were transfixed!

Fear is contagious, so this separation, coupled with the peer group pressure that Gertie must have experienced, finally made for a tear-free Guy Fawkes' night.  Hooray!

Smiles all round. Or perhaps they just grew up while we weren't looking.



Currently reading: The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton

Magic Number Seven

Seven is a magic number.

It is a lot of candles on a cake.

It is the difference between a cake that looks like a cake - something that grown-ups might like to eat too - and one that looks like this, from last year:

It is the difference between having a tea party with cup cakes and jelly and ice-cream, and going out to the cinema with a few mates from school, which was this year's 'party' choice.

It is a long time in years and it makes for one very grown up little girl.

Things have begun to happen very fast indeed.  She had a sleepover with two friends.  And they were entirely sensible, asking to brush their teeth after their 'midnight' feast, and all asleep by 10pm.

Her present from us was a tablet (much debate and agonising).  We haven't sorted out the internet controls yet, but she has, unfortunately already downloaded 'Candy Crush Saga'. On the upside, it means that presents are getting smaller.  More expensive, yes, but less plastic, bulky and ugly. She is more self contained.  She had a friend round to play earlier in the week and they sat quietly and made bangles for an hour and a half.

She doesn't volunteer for anything anymore.  She used to be the 'pick me, pick me' person, unable to stay in her seat with the effort of thrusting her hand upwards.  She was forever up on stage as the helper in the pantomime or magic show.  Now she would rather sit back and watch other people make fools of themselves, which is a little sad.

But we giggle together at something shared.  Often.  I do a lot of laughing with the boys, too, but it's usually at something they've said or done.

How do I feel?  Proud of my so clever and confident and beautiful girl.  Slightly wistful for the innocent bygone days of pleasures that don't involve a screen and downloading stuff.  A tiny bit frightened by how fast it is all changing...


Currently reading: Strange Music by Laura Fish.

Have the Bumps Gone Out of Fashion?

I only ask because it has never once occurred to me to give any of my children the bumps on their birthday.
In fact, I'd forgotten that they even existed until my memory was jolted by the sight of Arsene Wenger receiving them courtesy of his team following their FA Cup win.

Seeing this white-haired man in his mid-sixties being casually tossed aloft - and looking both delighted and slightly sheepish at the same time -  reminded me of that mixture of fear and exhilaration that came with getting the bumps on your birthday.  It was part of the whole deal...cake, candles, making a wish, presents, musical statues, the bumps.

So where did they go?  We've attended dozens of children's parties in over the last seven years.  Not even a sniff of them.  Wikipedia described them as one of a number of 'birthday torments' that might be inflicted.  I wondered if contemporary health and safety fears have banished them to the annals of history.

So, ignoring all that, we decided to reinstate them for Gertie's seventh birthday.

I think she enjoyed herself!

Currently reading: Death at Wentwater Court by Carola Dunn
Don't judge...it's half term!

2013: The Highs, the Lows

Happy new year to all my friends and family, readers and fellow bloggers; and during this time of reflection and resolution, a very quick, if self-indulgent, look back at 2013.


For the family, the biggest moment was Eddie finally taking his first steps back at the end of July. Looking at him running round after his siblings now you'd never guess it had been in any doubt. It quite brought a tear to his mother's eye. In September Gilby started school and has shone ever since. How cute did he look in his little school uniform, just a month after his fourth birthday? It...brought a tear to his mother's eye. After one term he can read and write and loves it. And Gertie becoming the Under-5 Celtic National Irish Dancing Champion in November brought, yes, a little tear or two to her mother's eye. A month later she had the lead in the school play. A star all round.


2013 was the year that I turned 40 and I had the most fantastic weekend for this milestone birthday as well as taking a long-held dream trip to Venice (just my husband and I, no kids!) to celebrate later in the year.


I think I have to count diving into the pool in Cabrieres for the first time at the start of our summer holiday as one of my top moments, and arriving at Harburn House in Scotland for Christmas as another. We can't travel the world in the same way as I once did, but clearly those little short trips and family holidays are just as special and important. Learning to ballroom dance is up there too, though we won't be troubling Strictly any time soon. We celebrated our seventh wedding anniversary very happily; where did those years go?


2013 had some professional highs: passing what I thought was my penultimate MA module last January with a merit, being accepted to present a seminar at the NATE conference in June, beginning a National Writing Project Group in Sussex in July, gaining an OFSTED outstanding at school in November. (I know that last one shouldn't count, but it does!)


There were some writing successes: Completing NanoWriMo with a 50,000 word draft of On Sudden Ground was a major achievement and now just that lengthy revision and editing process to go before securing that lucrative publishing deal in 2014. (When I will, also, finally complete my MA.) I won and was placed in a number of different short story competitions through the year; more writing to come in 2014, beginning with an educational article to be published in January.


The lows were thankfully few and far between. We lost my uncle last January. He was relatively young but it wasn't unexpected. Still very sad, though, especially for my mother. The beginning of March was plagued with illness, and I didn't enjoy going to work with an eye-patch during a severe eye-infection. On the upside, Gilby thought it was quite cool. Discovering that my final MA module wasn't was a bit of a bore (20,000 words still to go), and finding another 'suspicious' breast lump was more than a little scary, though thankfully now all fine once more. Being able to count those 'down' things on one hand reminds me of how very much I have to be grateful for.


It remains the family, of course, that is most important. We begin 2014 with a family day out and lunch with some dear friends, and that is the way that I mean to carry on.


Currently Reading: 72 Virgins by Boris Johnson. Not entirely sure why.

The Very Hopeless Mother

This week I have managed to miss my youngest son's nativity, practically ignore Gilby's Christmas play, and cause Gertie's grandfather to miss her performance as the very hopeless camel.

Eddie didn't take part in his play because, well, it was scheduled on a day when he wasn't in nursery and I just couldn't get him there. I console myself with the thought that I don't think he has any awareness that he was missing out on anything. He's too young to remember it.

I missed Gilby's because somewhere along the way we simply didn't find out about it. I checked his book bag to see if I had inadvertently mislaid a letter, but no, apparently it was all done by word of mouth at the school gate. Fine if you are there every day; not so good if you are one of the two full-time working mums of the class. So nobody was at his first performance during the day, and we managed to get him rushed to the second, evening performance, with seconds to spare and a breathless father somewhere at the back having dashed there early from work. There was some talk of me getting there the following night; except that it transpired that this mythical, third performance only existed in Gilby's head. He was very disappointed. Never mind. It's only his first term at school. His first ever nativity. The first time of wearing the tea-towel on his head as a shepherd...

But on the Thursday, we were far more organised for Gertie's starring role in 'The Very Hopeless Camel'. We had grandfather on board to get her there early, and had managed to secure elusive extra tickets, presumably on the basis of having been entirely hopeless and missing out on everything else thus far. It didn't quite go according to plan, though. I neglected the fact that not everyone else in the world is used to flying through the world at an unholy pace. The car journey to school - seven minutes if you really put your foot down and take the sneaky corner parking spot that most other parents wouldn't dare to, and which I have to do each Friday when I fly out of my school with ten minutes before the bell goes for the end of the day at there's - takes much longer in the dark and the rain when you are in your mid seventies and unfamiliar with the route and the idiosyncratic parking arrangements. So Grumps missed his grand-daughter harrumphing around brilliantly hopelessly.

And my new year's resolution? To slow down a little. I am going so fast that I am missing the important moments.

Currently reading: In Praise of Slow by Carl Honore.

Adventures in Fairy Land

Gertie has just had her second visit from the tooth fairy.

Apparently, after much research (or surreptitious playground discussion), it transpires that a first tooth is very special and is worth £2, and thereafter the going rate is £1.

The first tooth came out much later than those of all Gertie's contemporaries, so the wait was long and arduous. But when it came it provoked a relentless interrogation, Jeremy Paxman style, about the minutiae of the expected visit. I came away from the conversation sweating, wondering why we ever embarked on this elaborate fiction.

First time round, the mission to place the £2 coin was aborted twice due to stirring and loss of nerve, and the tooth itself couldn't be located. Finding a tooth under a pillow in my children's room is akin to the proverbial needle in a haystack. The detailed note to the tooth fairy was removed instead, and Gertie was delighted with the money and the tooth - bonus.

This time round, Gertie decided to make a gift to the tooth fairy, sellotaping some of her doll's house furniture to a letter. A smart dining room table and chairs, no less. The tooth was eventually found, (upon a return visit) and taken this time, but now the doll's house furniture is languishing in a shoe box.

The £1 was duly spent...on sweets. I'm not sure how the 'tooth' fairy feels about that. Tell a lie (imagine!), I know exactly how she feels: down in the mouth.

Heavenly Thoughts

Gilby, who begins school this week, is brushing his teeth as he asks, "Mum, how far away is God?"
Wow. Where to begin?
"Um. In heaven, which is a long way away."
"Further than France?" Clearly, our recent twelve-hour stint to the south is still very fresh in his mind.
"Yes, further than France..."
He spits out the water he's been rinsing with. "In that case, I don't think I'll go."

Birthday Know-How

Six years ago our lives were transformed, utterly, by the birth of Gertie.

Ten months of expectation and wonder, followed by a twelve-hour-induced-labour and too many stitches to talk about.

Then two more children, who also have birthdays.  Now I mostly bake cakes.

Who knew that the human body was capable of so much? (The cake-baking is the particularly impressive bit.)

On Growing and Throwing

Much of this blog is devoted to exploring and recording the little moments in the lives of my children that mark their growing up, but it occurs to me that it is simultaneously about me growing up too.  A mortgage, marriage and proper job should all have been outward signs of that, but of course I felt that I was just playing at it most of the time.  Still do, in fact.

But a definite sign of being grown up comes in the news that (and you need to hold the front page here) we have finally bought a new mattress for our bed.  Prompted by an aching neck and back (other signs of growing up, or at least growing old...) and a mere twelve years on from our last one (which came with the bed itself and was probably not top of the range, given our financial state at the turn of the millenium). What a transformation this has made to our lives.  I would never have believed it.  Goodbye giant lumpy old paillasse, hello orthopaedic mattress, and with it the forgotten joy of actually sleeping through!  (Something we celebrated in each of our children, but forgot to notice that we were not doing.)  The delight of waking up feeling vaguely rested.  The ecstacy of not being catapulted towards the ceiling because one of us turns over in the night...  I could go on, but suffice to say after four nights it has been worth every penny.

Speaking of catapults, Eddie is developing a powerful throwing arm, much to the delight of his cricket-loving father.  This does not, however, make for easy mealtimes, since I now have to recover crusts, bits of banana and any other unwanted food from much further afield than I did before.

First Day

What is it about school uniform that suddenly makes them look so grown-up?

Gertie was very excited about starting school, and not in the least bit concerned by the transition; in fact she seemed to think her mother's slightly erratic and emotional behaviour distinctly odd at times, though she accepted the morning's photo shoot with a mature tolerance.

All went smoothly from her point of view, though there were two minor failures on my part: the carefully sewn-in name badge on her cardigan came off and I forgot her water-bottle.

She was so ready to go that I really had no worries about how she would get on. Yet a small part of me can't help thinking about what is lost. Just a few weeks ago she was asking why I never plaited her 'front hair' (she couldn't think of the word for 'fringe'), and why God was always so 'baggy'. It took me a little while to work out what she meant, until she pointed at the sleeves on her white shirt that were loose at the ends, "like this". All the representations she sees typically picture God or Jesus in white loose-fitting clothing.

The concrete construal reminds me of another story I heard where a school inspector asked a reception child what they were drawing. "God," replied the child. "But nobody knows what God looks like," challenged the inspector. "They will in a minute," responded the self-assured five-year-old.

But when Gertie came home yesterday she told me that we must always wash our hands when we have touched something that has been on the floor, even if we are not about to eat. (I knew I had been lapse at this parenting-lark) and that the planets are all spinning all the time but so slowly that our eyes cannot see them. Aggie MacKenzie and Professor Brian Cox would both be proud.

Mummy? Is proud and just a little sad...

Nearly 39 weeks pregnant: Wondering if it is just pregnancy hormones, but suspecting that the other 750,000 Mums were also a bit weepy this week
Currently reading: Annie Dunne by Sebastian Barry