And Now You Are Five

And now you are five. 

My phone keeps sending my photos to reminds me of days gone by. The chubby cheeks you were sporting last year, the blonde bowl cut from the year before, and the chubby little legs you were graced with as a toddler. It all seems so long ago now you are five.

You have grown tall and stretched upwards towards the sun. Your hair is long and knot-free (a miracle). You fight against holding my hands unless we are by the busiest of roads. You want to run ahead, moving as fast as your legs will let you. Your knees are always grazed and bruised from trips and stumbles as you race ahead. 

You want to do everything your big sister can do; you already can’t wait to be nine. You chatter non-stop, telling me about your day and your dreams and your memories. Nothing gets forgotten. You love recounting stories from your past, repeating stories I’ve told you about when you were younger. 

You are a force to be reckoned with. Your nursery teacher once asked me if you ruled the roost, and I suppose you do. Your big sister sometimes tries to resist you to teach you a lesson, but she can’t stand it when you’re upset, so she usually gives in. Your little sister is besotted with you; even as you drag her about the room, she smiles happily because she loves having fun with you. 

You love fiercely and seek out physical contact. You are usually sat on or against us, clambering over your sisters to claim the best seat. You hug your best friend tightly and hold her hand whenever you can. You are forever cuddling or sitting on your favourite staff members at school. 

You are happiest with others, though you do like to play make-believe games by yourself. You can play for hours with your sister, disappearing for whole afternoons, lost in an imagined world of seas and baddies and spies. You like playing board games and doing arts and crafts, and running around letting off steam. You love books and read every day, we share the responsibility of bedtime stories these days, and you often read to your little sister during the day. 

Now, let us see what five brings.

To My Pandemic Baby

I was six months pregnant when the pandemic hit. I remember feeling nervous when it arrived in London and started to spread. I cancelled plans that involved busy trains and decided to stay closer to home. 

The country locked down. Children were sent home from school. The final week of school, I felt guilty about sending the girls in, I knew I should be keeping them at home, but I needed the time to prepare for the lockdown and the new baby. 

I tidied and organised. I ordered workbooks and craft materials. I took a hypnobirthing course. I wrote lists and ticked things off, and tried to get prepared for the unknown. Nobody knew how long the lockdown would last. Some people thought schools would reopen by Easter, but I thought they would stay closed until September. 

The final months of pregnancy were not as I had expected. I would wake early and take Ebony out for our one hour of exercise of the day; that's all we were allowed. We would walk a 6km circular route that took an hour at six months pregnant but more like an hour and a half by the end of the pregnancy. I would arrive home as Laurie started work, and I'd have a bath to ease my aching hips.

The rest of the day was spent in the garden, collecting new freckles and reading books. The girls splashed in the paddling pool or did workbooks in the treehouse, or painted on the picnic table. It felt like a gift, those extra months of the kids before becoming a family of five. 

You were born in early July in an eerily quiet hospital where we seemed to be the only patients. The midwives wore masks covering their faces, their welcoming smiles evident only from the noses up. Healthcare workers touched you with gloved hands, only when needed; there is no time to cuddle babies in a pandemic. 

Restrictions eased just a little. Grandparents came to see you in the garden. They squinted at you from a distance of 2 metres, longing for newborn cuddles. Then, restrictions tightened again, we lived in a covid hotspot, and the numbers kept going up. 

More restrictions, more emergency laws passed and more school closures. Self-isolations, grumbling children sent home from school, days to kill at home over winter. You spent a lot of time getting to know your sisters when they would otherwise have been at school, but you do not know your grandparents very well. 

You don't yet know the chaos and joy of playgroup. The excited screeches of other children and the frustration of having toys yanked out of your hands by unknown toddlers. Instead, you have discovered the world from the safety of a sling. Cradled high on my chest, peering out at people on our daily walks. 

If I'd lived through this isolation the first time, I'd have been lost. I wouldn't have known how to parent or what to do with you. You're lucky I've been through this before. You have big sisters there to play with. You've benefitted from Laurie working at home, and you've been able to spend so much longer getting to know him. This year, which could have been terrible, has been a gift. 

I'm sorry that your first year has been so slow. I'm sorry you haven't had many visitors and that most people have only ever seen you on screens. I'm sorry you don't reach out for grandparent cuddles or have a gang of baby friends to fight with. I'm sorry your first birthday was small and filled with umbrellas in a rainy garden on a miserable day, though you didn't seem to mind. 

In fact, you don't seem to be unhappy at all. You are just the excited, happy little explorer I always hoped you would be. So perhaps those overpriced baby groups where they rub you down with soft fabrics and sing trademarked songs at you aren't important after all. 

Perhaps all babies really need is to feel loved and be cared for. Perhaps they're not bothered about day trips or holidays, or coffee mornings. Maybe for babies, being stuck at home is just fine, at least for a little bit. Maybe these pandemic babies have had a good start in life, with their basic needs met. Maybe they have benefitted from the world slowing down just as much as the rest of us have. 

Happy first birthday, Ettie. I hope you have enjoyed this year as much as I have. 

Back to School (Again)

Schools go back tomorrow, apparently for good this time. I think there will be a few bubble closures before it’s all truly over, but hopefully, the schools will stay open from now. I have mixed feelings about this. I can see that it’s good for schools to reopen; I know some kids will have had a tough time at home and that many people are feeling burnt out, but I’ll be sad to return to an almost-empty house tomorrow. 

I’ve loved having the kids at home this year. I know I’m in a lucky position in that I’m self-employed and can focus on the kids and not try to juggle a stupid number of commitments. I know that not everybody has been able to do that. And please don’t think I’m claiming to be some kind of earth mother. I’m not. I have cried in the kitchen and wailed that I can’t go on like this anymore. I have silently prayed to the covid gods for schools to reopen just so that I can hear silence, instead of arguing, once again. 

We didn’t get home from school. We didn’t go to the class zooms or upload daily work to the class dojo. My children have most played and argued. They have done bits of work. Ebony has done a maths exercise every day and some English. We haven't done the work set by the school. I can’t cope with the printing or the screen time, so we just used workbooks. Ember has learned to read, but she hasn’t perfected her cursive writing. She hasn't learnt how to negotiate the complex social side of the school. I think they’ll be fine, and I hope that they have enjoyed our time hanging out at home over the past twelve months. 

This past year has been such a strange time. Stressful, anxiety-inducing, unchartered, but the lockdowns have felt like a gift in some ways. I’ve had the opportunity to spend extra time with my children, and I feel very grateful for that. We’ve learnt how to slow down and how to simplify life. We haven’t been rushing around or trying to please other people. It has been all about us. 

We’ve figured out how to live in harmony, how to read each other’s moods, and how to hold space for each other during moments of sadness. In the past, a crying child was always a challenge; I must stop them from feeling sad. Now, I know it’s ok to feel sad. It’s ok to cry because you miss your friends or worry about going back to school, and I don’t need to say or do anything to minimise those feelings; I just need to be there while they feel them. This is probably the lockdown achievement I’m most proud of.

I think Ettie will miss her sisters when they return to school tomorrow. She is used to a noisy house and lots of chaos. It will be strange to have her all to myself. I will be missing two babysitters, which will certainly be noticeable when I want to get anything done. I’m glad we were able to have this time as a family while Ettie was young. It has been nice for her to get to know her sisters properly and be so involved in the baby stage. I hope, though, that she will enjoy waking from naps naturally rather than being jolted awake by the sound of another sibling argument.  

5 Best & Worst Things About Having a Baby in Lockdown

 

Ettie was born in July, in the middle of a global pandemic, and while I wouldn’t recommend this timing as ideal for a stress-free pregnancy, I do think there were some positives. Ettie wasn’t my first baby and, if she was, I think I would feel completely different. I think I would have struggled with isolation if she was my first because I wouldn’t have had existing mum friends around me to offer support and listen to me moan. 

This list is a personal one based on my circumstances, and it won’t apply to everyone. Probably a lot of the things I class as benefits won’t apply to other people, but equally, there will be things I found difficult that perhaps other people wouldn’t have struggled with. I don’t live near to my parents, and I have missed them a lot this year. I would have loved to have been able to walk past their house regularly and wave at them through the window so they could see Ettie growing bigger (and me, during my pregnancy), but alas, it’s not possible for us. 

Now the disclaimers are out of the way; I am going to move onto the actual post. So, pregnancy and birth and babycare in a pandemic. What a headfuck. If you think your anxiety has been out of control during the pandemic, you should try being pregnant. It was stressful. 

Here are five of the best things about having a baby in lockdown:

1. Being cocooned 

I was six months pregnant when England went into lockdown. At the time, nobody knew how long it would last or what it meant for the future. I knew I wouldn’t be re-entering society until after the baby was born, however. Even when discussions started about when to re-open schools, I had decided I would be keeping my older children home until after the summer holidays. 

I stopped working pretty soon after lockdown because it wasn’t possible to juggle childcare and two working parents, and my job is flexible enough that I was able to stop. I know how lucky that makes me and that most people didn’t have a choice. I stopped working by April and then spent the new few months merely being pregnant and not homeschooling my kids. 

I would wake up early every day and take my eight-year-old out on a long walk. We walked for an hour and a half each morning (started as an hour, but by the end of pregnancy, I was sloooow). It was lovely to spend that time with her, listening to her chat absolute shit about Harry Potter and her future career as a librarian and her dream garden. When we got home, I would sit in the bath trying to pretend I wasn’t dying from the walk (my poor pelvis). Then, slowly, I would get dressed and ready for the day. We spent most of our time in the garden. Me, reading a book, lying on my Holo (a lilo with a bump hole - pregnant women, you need this).  The kids, completely feral, running wild in the garden.

I was in charge of feeding the kids, which was a fulltime job, but aside from that, I had very little to do. I was just pregnant, and it felt like a real luxury to be able to focus on that and take a break from real life. After the birth, I continued in this lockdown cocoon until the kids went back to school in September. 

2. No ‘Still pregnant?’ comments

As a woman who gestates for approximately 87 years with each pregnancy, I liked not seeing people. I don’t care who you are; I don’t want to hear your thoughts on the size of my bump or how long I’ve been pregnant. With my previous pregnancies, I have endured plenty of “Is it twins?!” and “Still pregnant then?” comments. This pregnancy, I only got one comment from one old man on one of my early morning walks with Ebony. I can handle one comment; I can’t handle weeks worth of comments. If I’d been on the school run in June, I’d have had to endure countless “Have you tried curry?” comments and the rage would have been difficult to manage, so for that reason alone, I’m glad I was on lockdown. 

It’s not fun going so far past your due date, but it felt manageable because the lack of other people’s opinions gave me space to relax and endure those final weeks of pregnancy (I was going to say enjoy but who am I kidding). 

3. Laurie was around

If somebody had asked me a year ago whether I would like Laurie to work from home fulltime, I would have said no. Then felt stressed that they were asking for a reason. Then rung Laurie to check he definitely wasn’t planning on working remotely anytime soon. But actually, having Laurie at home this year has been amazing. For me. Probably not for his clients and colleagues who have had to listen to our four-year-old screaming during meetings.

When I was pregnant and uncomfortable, Laurie could jiggle his work schedule to give me a break in the day. He started taking the kids out on a lunchtime bike ride every day. When I couldn’t sleep, he took the kids out for 7 am walks so that I could catch up on sleep. When I was 87 years pregnant and emotional, he could take over the parenting while I sat in the dark and pretending I trusted my body and everything was Fine. When I had hospital appointments at short notice, he could drive me there and look after the kids. Everything was more manageable with him at home.

And now, with three kids in the morning, his being home takes the stress out of the school run. Life just feels so much easier with an extra pair of hands around to help out. 

4. No visitors

It’s lovely when people want to come and visit your new baby. But, it’s also tiring and can be overwhelming in the early days. I had said right at the start of the pregnancy, long before anybody ate the bat, that I didn’t want to have any visitors for the first two weeks after the birth. After Ember’s birth, I felt very vulnerable and having visitors was just too much, and I didn’t want the stress of that again. 

Having a baby in lockdown means you can’t have visitors anyway. And, of course, there is a sad side to that, but in a completely selfish way, it was nice to have time to bond as a family of five. It’s tough when you’ve just had a baby. Physically, it takes weeks to heal even after a positive birth. Emotionally, your hormones are all over the place, and you feel insane. You are tired and overwhelmed and worried you will always feel this way. It’s not a good time to have people visit. I think we should all take it upon ourselves to leave new parents alone for the first few weeks so that they can bond with their babies and feel sane before they re-enter society. 

5. The sense of community

I quite like that I had a baby during the pandemic, partly because of the reasons mentioned above, but also because it’s a little bit different. I have a special face mask in her memory box, which I wore to the hospital for her birth. I think having a baby during lockdown has been strange and while there are definitely downsides, it’s also pretty special. I can see myself as a grandma telling stories about when I had my baby in lockdown. The hours spent in an online Ocado queue will be like the stories my grandparents told me about ration books. 

It’s also been nice to see the community coming together, not just for vulnerable people at risk of the pandemic, but also for new parents. In the village I live in, mums have organised walks for new parents so they can meet up and talk. There’s a socially distanced baby group in the church. There’s a WhatsApp group for local mums with babies (and ones for dads). Yes, some parents have found it harder to access proper services (my Health Visitor just didn’t show up to our appointment, so my only contact with her has been over the phone), but it’s been nice to see mums supporting each other to fill that void. 

It’s not all been positive, though. Some things have been pretty crap. Here are five of the worst things about having a baby in lockdown:

1. Extra anxiety

I think everybody felt anxious in March. There was an awful period where nobody knew what was going to happen. It was tense during those weeks; I was obsessively checking the news and death stats on my phone all day long. My screentime was about eight hours a day the week before lockdown. My eyes can’t cope with that level of screen use, and I had many headaches. 

Pregnancy heightened this anxiety. I wanted a home birth and home birth services across the country were getting cancelled, and I spent a lot of time worrying about that. I was afraid that if the kids or Laurie came down with symptoms, then I would end up having to give birth alone. I was worried about everything. It wasn’t fun, and it wasn’t easy to find reassurance to any of my worries because nobody knew what was going to happen. 

2. Attending appointments alone and trying to have serious conversations through masks

Masks aren’t fun, are they? The first time I wore a mask was for a routine midwife appointment, and when I tried to talk, I ended up yelling, which was funny but also awkward and embarrassing. At that midwife appointment, it took a long time to find the baby’s heartbeat. I was lying on the bed, under a bright light, trying to breathe through a mask, while the room was way too silent, and it wasn’t pleasant. 

What was more difficult, however, was trying to speak to doctors through a mask. It’s also worth noting that you have to attend all these hospital appointments alone. I would have been heartbroken if Laurie couldn’t attend the earlier scans with me, and while he did miss out on the later scans I had during pregnancy, I wasn’t too bothered about this because we weren’t supposed to have them anyway. Attending the Antenatal Day Unit alone was a terrifying prospect, but I actually found it ok. I seem to cry more if Laurie is there, so going alone meant I cried less (still managed to ugly cry once though, go me) which I was ok with. 

Masks, however, made it all feel quite stressful. I found it difficult making myself heard (this feels silly to say now because I’ve gotten so used to wearing masks, but at the time, it felt challenging). I had one very frustrating conversation with a doctor, and although I think it would have been stressful regardless, I don’t think the mask helped. I guess I rely on facial expressions a lot during conversations, so not having that element made it a lot more stressful. 

3. No visitors

I talked about the benefits above, but there are downsides to not having visitors. I was looking through old photos the other day and found some photos of my first child as a baby grinning at my mum, and it made me cry. It’s heartbreaking that Ettie doesn’t know who any of her grandparents are. Sadly, she hasn’t had regular contact with them or the cuddles that my other children had enjoyed by this age. It’s hard not living near my parents because it means they haven’t been able to see Ettie grow and she’s already changed so much. I’m glad we live in a time of smartphones and social media, but it in no way makes up for being there in person. 

On a selfish note, I missed my mum visiting in the early days because it meant our kitchen was a mess. My parents make my life easier. When I have a newborn baby, they appear with fresh fruit and homemade soup and by the time they leave, the house is less chaotic, my kids are happy, and my load feels lighter. I missed that a lot, especially in the early weeks. 

There are also lots of friends who haven’t met Ettie, and that feels weird. Quite a few of my faraway friends have had babies this year, and we haven’t been able to introduce them. I know this year would have looked very different without coronavirus. It’s been weird to have a year of minimal socialising, and I am so looking forward to things returning to normal again.

4. No baby mates

I know, babies don’t really have friends, but also the do. I miss the days of going to the pub and plonking the babies down on the pub sofa and pretending they were best friends. I miss lying all the babies down next to each other at baby group. I miss watching them interact, even though it is inevitably scratchy and drooly. 

I am lucky to live a few doors away from a baby group that has found a way to continue in a socially-distanced capacity. That baby group is over-subscribed (as I’m sure you can imagine) because of the limit on numbers. However, the woman who runs it is lovely and is going above and beyond to make sure mums are still able to find the support they need (I think she might be an actual angel). We sit on mats and can’t move around the room, the babies don’t get to interact, but it’s a nice play to go and chat with other mums, and it has been a life-saver. 

I am so glad Ettie wasn’t my first baby and that I already know plenty of mums I can meet up with for walks. When I had my first baby, I didn’t know anybody in my local area, and not many of my friends had children so I would have struggled so much with loneliness if we’d been in lockdown. I feel for all the first time mums trying to navigate parenthood for the first time this year. 

5. Her baby book is a little sorry

There is definitely a market for pandemic-specific baby groups because the regular ones don’t work very well. There’s a big focus on visitors and cuddles and things that just weren’t possible in 2020. I would prefer a place to stick the facemask from her birth, and photographs of loved ones waving through windows, and perhaps maps of the many, many, many walks I took her on when there was nowhere else to go. Instead, the baby book is like a collection of what should have been—the special occasions and the family meetups and baby showers that were not to be this year. 

To all those of you who have welcomed babies this year, I hope you have found some positives to take the edge off. It has certainly been a strange time to have a baby. 

Maternity Leave Lockdown

Ettie is three months old now. I don’t know how that’s possible, but there it is. It feels like she has always been here. The pregnancy feels like a distant memory now. I was thinking recently how strange this year has been, and how I’ve barely written so there will be no record of how I felt during this time. I don’t know whether that matters, but it seemed strange to live through such a strange time and not have written about it. 

I wrote that first paragraph a month ago, I am really struggling for time at the moment. Sitting down at my laptop isn’t easy and on the rare occasions I manage it, it’s usually because I have something specific to do. I often find myself trapped on the sofa under a sleeping baby, but that’s not a great position for typing so I’ve been using that time to read books. I like reading books so this has been lovely and I’ve read lots about birth and motherhood. 

I think the past month has felt harder pandemic-wise. I was ok being in lockdown when I was pregnant. I felt pretty safe cocooned at home with my family, knowing we were keeping ourselves safe. I may have been the strictest person, in fact, I was so terrified that one of us would come down with symptoms and it would me stop me having a home birth. We got all our shopping online because I just didn’t want to take any risks, which seems a bit silly now but nevermind. 

Having a new baby in lockdown was ok, too. We didn’t have to worry about visitors and that was quite nice to just spend that time as a family of five (so many) getting to know each other. There are so many hormonal changes happening in those early weeks, it’s actually quite ridiculous how much socialising new mums are expected to do. I wasn’t struggling with breastfeeding or anything so the reduced support didn’t bother me personally. I felt really looked after by my lovely midwife and I didn’t feel like the pandemic had caused me to miss out on any care of anything. 

But now, I guess now that the protective bubble doesn’t feel quite so necessary, it feels more restrictive. Ettie doesn’t feel like a vulnerable newborn anymore, and I miss my parents. It’s hard not being able to see them or my faraway friends. I find all the uncertainty around the guidelines and laws and restrictions quite unsettling. I wish there an end date, I think a lot of people are feeling that. I totally understand why the rules are there and I’m certainly not breaking them, but I think mentally it feels harder now than it did in the summer. 

I spend a lot of time walking with Ettie in the sling. My mum bought me a big babywearing coat to keep us both warm and it’s just lovely. It’s like wearing a big hug and I love it. I wish I’d bought one two babies ago instead of waiting till Ettie. I bought myself some walking shoes, too, which means I can stomp down the canal even when it’s very wet and the path is covered in giant puddles. Every morning, I drop the older two at school and then go for a big walk around where I live. It’s beautiful at this time of year. But I get back home at about half-past ten in the morning and then there’s really much to do until I pick the kids up again. There aren’t many baby groups, I can’t meet friends in cafes, it just feels very different from my previous maternity leaves. 

I go for walks with other mums some days. Other times I end up going for a few walks by myself just to fill the time. I’m not sure Ettie will ever learn things like rolling over or crawling because she spends so much time in the sling. I hope the babywearing coat and the walking shoes will mean we can keep walking every day even when it’s wintery and cold because otherwise, it’s going to feel like a very long winter. This has certainly been a strange year to have a baby, and I’m very glad this wasn’t my first (or only) maternity leave. 

Reinstating Old Habits for 2020

Welcome to January, the month when dormant bloggers come out to state their intentions to rejoin the land of blog. You may have guessed that I am one of them. I have completely abandoned this blog in recent months (years), though it wasn't a deliberate decision. Having two children is way more time consuming than having one. Who knew. At first, I struggled to find the time, then I struggled to find the brainpower and, finally, I struggled to find the confidence. 

The truth is, I miss it. I am so glad that I have this record of my life as a mother. In truth, I wish I'd started it sooner. I wish I'd written down my thoughts and experiences throughout my whole life. I realise most people do this in a private diary and perhaps there is something strange about putting it all out there for the world to see. When I became a mum, I read so many blogs and I loved knowing that there were other people out there who felt the way I did about motherhood, parenting and the world. 

Lately, I've been re-visiting my old pregnancy blog posts. I wrote weekly updates the whole way through my second pregnancy and I have been reading them to compare this time (oh yes, I am pregnant). It's so nice being able to look back and see that I felt similar (or not) back then. Pregnancy and motherhood are such life-changing events, and at the time you think you'll never forget them, but in truth you do. The memories fade and your recollections get muddled and all of a sudden you can't remember which child did what when. 

This blog has let me keep hold of my memories. It has secured them in time so that I will always be able to find them. They won't fade or disappear, though the bad grammar and terrible writing will make me weep on particularly hormonal days. 

I am 18 weeks pregnant and I haven't really been keeping track of my symptoms. I'm going to start writing a weekly update like I did last time. Partly because the weeks are flying by and I'm not sure this baby is getting much of my attention, maybe carving out some space here will help with that. And hopefully, it will help me find my writing mojo again because that has been severely lacking in recent months. 

This is probably the most interesting of my life plans for 2020 (apart from having a baby obviously). Other than this, I am mostly trying to be more organised and live in less chaos and read more books. But these are my plans every year and I rarely achieve them. I did read more last year but only in the first half of the year, I'm not sure what went wrong after that. Hopefully this year I will manage to achieve all of my goals.

Attending a Youth Strike 4 Climate March

Ebony is a fan of Greta Thunberg’s (who isn’t, right?). I signed Ebony up for a First News subscription, and so now she gets a newspaper delivered every Friday. I do this mostly for myself because I like to see her reading a newspaper. But also, I do it because I really want her to know what’s going on in the world. I find people who don’t understand feminism, people who don’t vote, and people who seem to have no awareness of climate change to be truly terrifying. I can’t raise these people. I must raise people who ask questions and consider ethics, even if they don’t always make the right choices. I’m not looking for perfection here, just some compassion and social conscience.

So, every week, a newspaper arrives and it inevitably has a story about Greta in. Or climate change. Or the climate strike. Ebony has been reading these articles for weeks and asking when she can go on one. So, we went on the May climate strike. It was the fourth monthly event in Manchester, and they will be continuing long into the foreseeable future (until either the government takes real action to prevent climate change or we all die of climate change. Jokes…). If you haven’t been on one yet, you should go, they are positive and uplifting and filled with hope.

Ebony wrote a letter to her headteacher telling him that she was going on the march and that I’d be picking her up early from school. Her headteacher was really positive about it, which I will admit surprised me a little. While I am fully on board with protests and strikes and the need for climate action, I wasn’t sure her school would be. When I went to pick her up on the day, the receptionist was really positive about it, too. She made Ebony promise to tell her all about it after the holidays.

When we first got to the protest, there was a huge group of people gathered outside central library. They were setting up a PA system, and once that was sorted, the organisers gave some short speeches. The marches are organised by school pupils and there were young people with banners all around us. The local police had sent out a pretty stern-sounding email to local secondary schools essentially threatening arrests. I imagine to a teenager who has never protested before, and their parents, this sounds pretty scary. So I was pleased when Andy Burnham, Manchester’s Mayor, took the mic and thanked everyone for turning out and said how proud he was of them.

The kids decorated the street with pavement chalk and coloured in some paper plates in the family area while the later talks were going on. And then it was time for the march. Ebony held her homemade sign up high and proud the whole way around. She loved joining in with the chants and there were quite a few other kids around her age. Ember, on the other hand, immediately fell asleep and I had to lug her dead weight the whole way around Manchester which wasn’t exactly ideal. She woke up as the march ended and then cried because she had missed it. Toddlers are fun.

Ebony came away from the event feeling inspired. And I think it was good for her to see other families and kids out there protesting. She definitely wants to strike again.

Back to my space

I don’t really write much here these days, do I? It has become a neglected part of my life that I occasionally feel guilty about. I used to write this blog when Ebony was a baby and everything about motherhood was new and fascinating and hilarious and a little bit terrifying. There are pages and pages of posts about what it was like being Ebony’s mum.

I sometimes think, if I died, Ebony would know she was loved. She’d be able to grow up and read those posts and know exactly how I felt about it. If she were to have children of her own, she’d be able to compare our experiences even though I wouldn’t be there to ask. This blog is like a time capsule she could dust off and experience whenever she wanted to feel close to me.

But then it just fizzles out. Work got busy, life got busy and I got tired, and suddenly I didn’t spend as much time here. I still had things I wanted to write about, but they never made it past the notes app on my iPhone. I don’t want these memories to fizzle out. I want to keep writing, and recording and taking the time to remember what life is like right now.

The girls are changing so fast at the moment. They both seem taller and older than they did just weeks ago. Ebony has spent most of the Easter holidays with her face in a book. She has read and read and read. Today, she ate her dinner one-handed so she could finish Awful Auntie. I love seeing her get lost in books. If she comes across a bit that makes her laugh, she pauses so she can read it aloud to me.

Ember is changing, too. She is getting to an age where she can play by herself for longer periods now. She will do jigsaws or draw or disappear into the playroom by herself. Today, she played with a doll in the paddling pool for a long time. When Ebony asked if she could play too, Ember replied, “I don’t know, do you trust yourself?”

She did, so the played.

Our Half-Term

I’m not a mum who counts down to schools opening again after the holidays. I love the holidays. I get more sleep (I don’t know how that works but it does), I get to spend more time with my kids, and we get to break free from the monotonous routine that school entails. Obviously, I also have to referee a lot of fighting, spend more time on public transport than I would usually like, and empty my piggy bank to pay for days out. But, for me, the good outweighs the bad.

This half term seemed to sneak up on me. I don’t know what happened to January but it was over in a flash. Both kids were poorly at the start of Feb, and then I caught it, so this half-term appeared out of nowhere. I hadn’t made any plans or found any fun things to do, so we had a bit of a last-minute half-term. Kind of like those ‘picnic teas’ you have on the days you haven’t been shopping, but with a week worth of activities instead of cucumber slices and crackers.

My sister has moved back to the UK after a couple of years abroad, so she came in useful during half-term. The kids find everything more exciting if Rosie is there. On Monday we all went to watch Lego Movie 2 at the cinema. It’s quite a long film, too long for Ember, it turned out. I loved the film, it was really funny, but I have no idea what happened in the end because I had to take Ember outside. She was yelling things like ‘I’m hungry’ and ‘I don’t want raisins’ and ‘WHYYYYYY?’ over the film, so I had to take her outside. Luckily, Rosie was there so Ebony didn’t have to sit in the cinema by herself while Ember ran riot in the foyer.

On Tuesday, we had a quiet day at home. We popped to the local shops for ingredients and books (I said I’d buy the girls a book each from the charity shop and we came out with ten books, I cannot say no to reading). Then we made some vegan lemon slices and they were so good. Also, I can now make vegan lemon curd and I didn’t even know such things were possible. I feel that a vegan lemon meringue pie could be on the horizon. The weather was nice so we spent some time in the garden and both kids ended up covered in mud and scratches.

Wednesday, we paid a visit to the People’s History Museum. I really love this museum, it’s my favourite in Manchester. It never feels chaotic or overrun like the other museums in the city centre. I think it might be a hidden gem so don’t tell anyone how good it is. They had a clay workshop on for half-term so Ebony went to that with Rosie while Ember yelled ‘I’m hungry’ at me a lot in the foyer. That kid loves to eat.

On Thursday, I had some work to do so my parents took the girls out for the day. I received numerous WhatsApp messages throughout the day showing the kids growing increasingly muddy and sure enough, they arrived home at 4 pm coated in dry mud. Obviously, they then had a bath. It was good to get some work done and it means I won’t have to work this weekend so now Laurie can work on his essay for uni (remember when we used to spend weekends as a family? Sob).

Friday came far too quickly, one week just isn’t long enough for a holiday. We spent the morning tidying the house ready for some friends to visit. The kids spent the afternoon playing in the garden and causing chaos in the playroom. Ember mostly spent the afternoon saying ‘I’m hungry’ and ‘Push me on the swing’. Two and a half is a very demanding and hungry age, isn’t it?

It didn’t feel like we did much during the holidays, but nobody complained of being bored. I think we found the right balance between days out and days at home. I just can’t believe half-term is finished already. Let the frantic PE kit search commence!

How Much Freedom Should A Seven-Year-Old Have?

It takes a while to settle into a new job role, doesn’t it? At first, you feel unsure of what you’re doing and terrified that the rest of your colleagues can tell. And then your confidence starts to grow and people start asking you for your advice and, eventually, you feel like you belong. How long that takes varies from job to job, with parenting, it takes more than seven years. I have now been a mother for seven whole years and I am no wiser (but plenty older) than I was on day one.

The thing about parenting is that it’s constantly changing. As soon as you think you have the hang of something, the world spins and everything you thought you ‘knew’ comes crashing down around you. I remember that so well from when my firstborn was a baby. I knew when she would sleep and how to soothe her and how often she would feed, and then a regression would hit and it was as though she’d been switched for a completely different baby.

I’ve noticed that parenting gets both easier and harder at the same time. Toddlers might sleep a little better than newborns, but they also put a lot of energy into trying to escape from your grip when you’re walking down busy roads. They may not leave you with chapped nipples, but they will throw a bowl of tomato soup at your once-white kitchen walls. Four-year-olds can be reasoned with, but they are also capable of biting other kids on the heads when they don’t get their own way. Six-year-olds may be the perfect companions for days out and restaurants, but they will shout that they hate you when they’re mad at you.

My eldest daughter turned seven this week and, for some reason, this feels huge. Seven is on the cusp of something, isn’t it? Seven isn’t big or mature, but it’s heading in that direction. It feels, to me, a world away from six. Seven seems like the right time to start giving her some freedom, to let her out into the world to make decisions and mistakes for herself (with me, pressed up against the front bedroom window, watching intently, probably). To me, she still seems so little, but she isn’t really. She’s growing up fast, and it’s important to me that she grows up feeling sure of herself and I think independence is an important part of that.

So now, as a parent, I have the tough job of navigating this awkward in-between stage somewhere little and desperately wanting not to be. She isn’t yet demanding things older kids have, there are things she would like, sure, but nothing she is desperate for. She isn’t begging to do things by herself, but I don’t necessarily think I need to wait for her to reach that stage before she gets some independence.

One thing I feel very aware of at the moment, probably because it’s January and we’ve been spending a lot of time indoors, is how little freedom Ebony really has. We live on a fairly busy road so she can’t play out on the street. I asked about independence over on Facebook and quite a few parents said their kids were allowed to play out with kids on the street. That sadly isn’t an option for us because we live on a busy road. And that causes problems with the other things she could do because crossing that busy road is necessary to get most places she could go. I think I will work on her road crossing skills over the coming weeks and then reassess.