Success!

It’s a lot. I still don’t feel ready to write about it. 

But here’s the thing: I showed my manuscript to a publisher and they’ve offered me a book deal!

It’s going to be a book! It’s going to be in shops!

Nup. Still can’t get my head around it.

I was in the middle of a wedding rehearsal when I found out. It seemed wrong to shriek the news out across the church when I probably shouldn’t have been looking at my phone in the first place. When I got home, Christopher (who is now 14) had made a delicious lasagne, but had only just put it in the oven. He is an excellent cook, but sometimes struggles with the project-management side of things (it was 7:45pm). The younger children were hyper-hangry and fighting. I had a brief moment of joyful glee with my husband, before he had to sign in to two Zoom meetings at once (I don’t know how that works either).

It was only after I warmed up plates of lasagne for the kids, only after I got them ready for bed, only after I drove to McDonalds to pick up Matilda from her job, only after I gave her a driving lesson home, only after I got my own slice of lasagne from the oven and put it on a plate that I was able to grapple with the idea. 

“Dammit.” I said, and dug around in the fridge drawer for a bottle of Prosecco that was on special at Liquorland the week before. I popped the cork and grimly poured myself a glass. Then I looked at the glass. It’s been almost five years. It’s been longer if you count the time writing for my blog. All of the snatched sessions writing in cafes and libraries and in the car (like I am right now). I try to summon up some kind of response. I’m going to be published.

Nup.

Then my husband came out of his meetings and we watched an episode of Ted Lasso together.

The next day, I had a couple of people over and was berating myself as I company-cleaned for the first time in many months. I am not kind to myself in these situations. My internal monologue goes like this: “How did you let things get this bad?” “What is wrong with you?” “Look at that mess!” “You are a FAILURE!” But I stopped for a moment as I tipped out filthy mop water. I may be a domestic failure, but I DID just sell my novel!

Since then, I’ve managed to feel joy through other people’s reaction to the news. The idea of being published is like a small smiling thought, warming me from the inside. And now I’m telling you, and it feels like the biggest thing. Because you’re my reader community, my biggest supporters from the start. It’s too big. I don’t have words. I didn’t plan it, but it turns out today is my blog’s nine year anniversary! Thank you for everything. I would never have done it without your support.

I can’t WAIT to show you the novel!

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Locky D Lucky D

So we’re in deep dark lockdown here in Melbourne again. We’re not allowed to leave the house, except for five reasons, we have a curfew at night, and the playgrounds are shut. This is our sixth lockdown. It’s hard.

Do you remember how I sometimes go into manic Pollyanna mode when stressed? That’s what happened this time when they tightened the restrictions and I realised things were going to get really miserable. Up until then, I’d kind of been mooching through lockdown, every day looking like the one before. But last week, it was time for me to get off the couch and put my big girl pants on. It was time to Mum Up.

Here’s what I did:

I brainstormed a bunch of fun activities that we could still do, even in the strictest of Locky Ds. Every morning, we draw one out of the jar and do it.

It sounds simple, I know, but I can’t tell you how much sunshine this jar has brought into our life. In the past, we’ve brainstormed on butcher’s paper, but I’m telling you: the jar makes all the difference. Here’s why:

1. You only have to do ONE fun thing a day.
2. You don’t have to make a DECISION ever.
3. The kids look forward to the lucky dip event even more than the actual activity.
4. As a bonus, the kids don’t drag their feet about getting ready in the morning. We don’t do the lucky dip until everyone is dressed and fed.
5. We no longer have to deal with a long stretch of days that all look the same.

I shared (rather smugly) this idea with some friends from parkrun. One of the women lives alone and has made herself a jar full of grown-up activities which she draws out once a week. Last week, she bought herself fresh flowers. I can’t wait to find out what she does next.

Here are some of the activities we have in the jar:

• Pancakes and french toast
• Decorate a birthday cake for no good reason
• Fake-away night (make take-away style food)
• Painting day
• Board game night
• Free day off school (primary school only!)
• Slide night
• Zoom kahoot quiz with friends
• Movie night
• Video game tournament
• Videocall hide-and-seek
• Everyone gets to choose a treat for themself in the online grocery shop
• Make caramel popcorn
• Walk in the park to collect things for a flower mandala

I’m trying to remember to take photos. When we made the caramel popcorn, we put some in a bag to deliver to the family who lives behind us. BUT I FORGOT TO TAKE ANY PHOTOS. What is the the point of doing something impossibly wholesome if you don’t document it?

Pippi, my youngest, is now worried that lockdown will be over before we get to do all the fun things. I don’t think she needs to worry too much. This is Melbourne, after all. We’ll always have another lockdown to look forward to.

Interview Fail

 

So I’ve been doing a bit of writing lately. Apart from my Very Own Column at Australian Catholics magazine, I’ve also started to write features, as a freelancer, for Melbourne Catholic magazine. I often get confused looks when I try to explain this to people (and I often try to explain this to people, even if we weren’t, in fact, talking about it). Melbourne Catholic is a separate magazine, despite the similar name. It comes from the Archdiocese, rather than the Jesuits.

Features writing is fun and interesting, but my great love will always be in trying to make people laugh (which is why that first paragraph is such a side-splitter).  I’m not the greatest at interviewing people (you actually have to stop and let them talk, I’m told), but I do like the feeling of having yet another Important Writing Job and more opportunities to talk loudly about expecting an email from MY EDITOR and looking around impressively whenever I’m in a crowded place.  I think the staff at Aldi are a little over it, to be honest.

So far, I’ve written a feature on crochet and another one on grief.  I’ll share them with you when they get published (the crochet feature is out, just not electronically yet).  The most recent one I’ve been writing has been about the refugees in Eltham.  It’s a topic I care about, but it’s been a real pain to write.  I’ve had to interview no fewer than eight people.  I don’t mind the talking-to-people part of interviewing; I can even do the listening-without-interrupting part if I concentrate hard enough.  It’s the finding-ten-minutes-of-peace-to-make-a-phone-call that I’ve struggled with the most.

Now there was a particular person I’d been especially keen to talk to.  Many of the other interviews had left me with important questions that this woman could answer for me.   But I’d had a bit of trouble, first with tracking her down, then with finding a time I could talk with her.   Many a time I’d put the TV on for the kids, locked myself in the bathroom with recording equipment all set up and made the all-important call, only to find that she was in a meeting or off-site.  Getting information wrong on a crochet article would be one thing.  I didn’t want to get it wrong on such an important topic.  The deadline was looming and still we hadn’t spoken.

On Mondays, the kids and I go to a homeschooling co-op, held in one of those amazing mega-churches.  It’s the best.  On this particular Monday, I was upstairs in the cafe, sitting at a table and trying to get this article written.  Christopher, Harry and Annie were in their various classes, run by the mums and dads.  Daisy and Poppy (who are now two-and-a-half-can-you-believe-it) were in a cute little play area with a pool fence around it.  I scratched my head as I looked at what I’d written so far.  If I didn’t speak to this woman, there would be a lot of holes in the article.

Then my phone rang.  It was her!  It was totally her!

I knew these weren’t ideal interview conditions.  The cafe was noisy and the twins were unpredictable.  But I also knew if I let it go to voicemail and tried to call back later, I would find she was off working hard doing her actual job and not at her desk.  This was my one window.  I answered the phone smoothly, set it to speaker and set my iPad to record.

“So tell me, what is the history of this project?”

Of course I knew the history of the project.  I’d done my homework.  But I wanted a neat little ‘expert’ quote from her to put at the start of the article.  It would frame things nicely.  Interview Lady launched into a description of the situation in Eltham, sounding a little perplexed at my apparent ignorance (she later would recommend a series of fact sheets she had written) just as Daisy started to shriek piteously.

I looked across to the play area.  Daisy stood wretchedly beside the toy oven as Poppy did a victory lap, holding several golden strands of her sister’s hair aloft as she strode along.  I bustled silently into the pen, admonished Poppy with only my eyebrows and a very pointy finger, scooped up the whimpering Daisy with the arm that wasn’t holding my phone and iPad and brought her back to the table with me.   “Mmm.” “Yes.”  “Really?”  I said calmly, taking the sugar and placing it on a different table.

Foiled in her sugar-eating attempt, Daisy picked up the pepper and began shaking it liberally onto the table.  I took it from her.  She let out an unearthly howl.  I put it back.  She continued in her redecorating.

“What would you say are the challenges facing refugees, given our current housing situation?” my voice didn’t waver.  I don’t think Interview Lady could tell I was trying to wrestle my iPad out of Daisy’s grasp.  But then that stupid free U2 song started playing at full volume.  She must have bumped something.

Daisy lay down on the ground in (thankfully) mute protest as I desperately jabbed at buttons to make Bono shut up.  “Tell me more about that,” I said (to Interview Lady, not Bono), as one of the security guards waved to get my attention.

I looked to where he was pointing.  Poppy had pushed the toy washing machine up against the side of the play pen and had used it to clamber onto the quite-high fence.  “Hi Mummy!” she cackled as I solemnly hoisted her onto my shoulder and brought her back to my table.  Interview Lady was on a roll, telling me all sorts of things without pausing for breath.  This allowed me to go into a silent panic without having to think up another question.  Daisy was gone.

“Is there anything about the Eltham project you would consider applying to future projects?” I pulled Daisy out from under the table.  She had run around the corner and was lying at the feet of some other cafe patron.  I now held a twin under each arm and was balancing my phone and iPad under – actually, I’ve no idea how I did it.  All I know is, when I put them down to try to organise myself, they ran for the stairs, shouting “SLIDE!”

I should explain.  This particular very-large-church has a tunnel slide that children can take downstairs to their well-resourced kids’ ministries because of-course-they-do.  I mean, I’ve tried suggesting to my parish that perhaps we could set up a small box of toys and a play rug for children to use after Mass when the grown ups are drinking (instant) coffee and it’s been all too hard to think about.  Noooope we wouldn’t want to encourage children to come to Mass or anything.  Heaven forbid.

What was I talking about?  Oh yes, the dratted slide.  A couple of little girls and their mums were  already having a play on this contraption.  One of the girls is a four-year-old I’m going to call Buttercup who is friends with the twins.

So Daisy makes a dash for the slide, pushes past Buttercup and dives straight down it.  “MRS KATE!  MRS KATE!  IT WASN’T HER TURN!  MRS KATE!”  I know Buttercup said this because it’s right there on the recording, drowning out whatever salient point Interview Lady was making.  I nodded expressively and sympathetically (and silently) at Buttercup and said “do go on” to Interview Lady.

“MRS KAAAAAAATE!”  Poppy was jubilantly sitting at the top of the slide.  This was her position of power.  If she sat at the top of the slide, without actually going anywhere, all the children around her would go berserk.  Poppy loved this.  Buttercup gave Poppy a shove.

“What do you see as your plans for the future?” Poppy made it halfway down the slide tunnel, stopped herself, and began climbing back up (“THAT’S NOT ALLOWED!  THAT’S NOT ALLOWED!!”).  Daisy, meanwhile, was climbing back up the stairs for another turn.  I gave the other mothers an apologetic smile.  I was that mother: nattering away on her mobile phone whilst her children cause havoc.

“Do you have any final thoughts?”

“I HAVE A STINKY NAPPY MUMMY!”  Daisy did have a stinky nappy.  A real eye waterer.  And Poppy had come out at the bottom of the slide and was not coming upstairs.  I walked down the stairs with Daisy (“NO!  NO!  SLIDE!  SLIDE!”) to fetch Poppy before she went running off down the corridor and out of sight.  The interview was wrapping up.  I thanked Interview Lady, saved the recording and emailed it to myself seven times.  Then I apologised to the other mums and trudged upstairs with the twins to clean the peppered table.

While I might have relived the trauma of the afternoon when i transcribed the interview later, it did provide me with some very useful information and quotes.  I’ve since written the article and am waiting to hear from MY EDITOR to see if she thinks its any good.  I expect to hear from MY EDITOR any minute now and am checking my phone rather agitatedly.  Of course, she’d need time to actually read it and then to formulate a response.  Plus MY EDITOR would have other articles to read as well.  I really mustn’t worry about it.  I really must stop.

At least, that’s what the assistant manager at Aldi tells me.

Grown Up Writer Fail

One of the reasons I haven’t been posting so often on this blog as I would like is because I got myself a paid job as a columnist for a really-truly magazine. It still thrills me to get an email from My Editor, describing the requirements and deadline for the next column; it gives me such a buzz to have an Important Reason to go off to the cafe to write and edit; and it sends me through the roof to send off the finished copy to be published.

Because everything is done via email and from home, it almost doesn’t seem real. If my life were a movie, there could easily be a twist halfway through in which the audience discovers that the important Editor Kate has been corresponding with and writing so feverishly for is, in fact, a mere psychological construct, a delusion, built to fulfil Kate’s desperate desire to have her writing taken seriously. What we have been witnessing has in fact been a young mother’s school-lunch-and-laundry-fuelled descent into madness. Gripping viewing.

But there is one day in all the year that reassures me that it’s not all made up and I am, in fact, a writer. An after-work Christmas Drinks at the offices of Jesuit Publications. A place to meet other writers and have proper adult conversations. I couldn’t wait.

You might remember me talking about this epic event last year, when I brought the twins with me. This year, I would be child-free. A proper, grown-up writer. And even though Wednesday was a crazy day with everything on, I was going to make it work if it killed me. I even put together a timeline to make sense of it all. It looked like this:

1. (9:00am) Mum takes Annie to kinder, morning jobs and schoolwork done

2. (11:00am) Early lunch

3. (12:00pm) Drop Harry at his atrium session.

4. (12:10pm) Go to the shops to buy ingredients for the salad the children would be bringing to the scout barbecue that evening. Also get birthday present for Matilda’s friend.

5. (1:30pm) Pick up Harry.

6. (1:40pm) Get dressed up. Make salad. Prep swimming gear.

7. (3:00pm) Pick Annie up.

8. (4:00pm) Swimming lessons

9. (5:00pm) Drive to husband’s work

10. (5:15pm) Swap cars with husband. Husband drives to scout BBQ. I drive to city.

11. (6:00pm) Arrive at party. Acquire glass of champagne and fashionably bored facial expression.

It all went pretty smoothly until Step 6 (get dressed up / make salad / prep swim gear). I had put Matilda in charge of the salad preparation. I needed to put a lot of work into getting ready. I was going for ‘Sophisticated Writer to be Taken Seriously’, not ‘Dowdy Matron’. I even went to the trouble of putting shimmery bronzing cream on my arms and (shaved!) legs. The stuff was hard to open as I haven’t used it in over a year. I was as I was wrestling myself into a pair of magic underpants, designed to stop people from congratulating me and asking when the baby is due, that Matilda called up the stairs.

“Mum . . . I think you might need to take a look at this”

The salad stuff we bought was pretty straightforward – cherry tomatoes, olives, avocado and a large bag of pre-washed ready-to-go lettuce mix. It would only take a few minutes to assemble. But we had hit a roadblock. The un-opened bag of pre-washed lettuce contained a very large, very live insect.

Can you see it? Down, down, standards are down!

I sighed, tossed the salad bag into the car and proceeded to step 7 (pick Annie up). The kinder assistant was curious to know why I wasn’t in my usual uniform of jeans, sneakers and banana-spattered science-fiction t-shirt. I swelled up and told her about my grown-up writer event. The assistant looked genuinely impressed. This woman has seen me bring four of my children through the kinder and has been privy to all of my organisational fails – turning up late, forgetting forms and money, failing to provide family photos, failing at book week. I don’t often feel like a grown up when I come to kinder. But today was different.

It was with a jaunty swagger that I hurtled towards step 7.1 (return defective salad). I got myself a salad upgrade and a refund. I ignored the uneasy feeling that I was merely replacing the salad with more from the same poorly washed batch – I had no time!

I applied my make up at the red lights on the way to swimming lessons and managed to achieve a convincing ‘smoky eye’ over the course of three backed-up intersections. Whilst the children were in the pool, I put together one page of ideas on how I could revolutionise the magazine, just in case the conversation tended in that direction.

After handing the car, children and salad over to my husband, I drove off to battle the traffic. The Google Maps lady kept cheerfully directing me through bewildering shortcuts. One time she asked me to turn right from a side street onto a busy road with no traffic lights. Then she made me cross three lanes of thick traffic in 500 metres. I got the sense she was enjoying herself.

As I waited in a stagnant river of cars and painted my nails, I realised in dismay that I’d forgotten to do my homework. I’d planned to bone up on back issues of the magazine and its sister publications.   I’d wanted the work of the writers I’d be meeting to be fresh in my mind so I could pay them the compliment of being familiar with their work. Alas! I would have to wing it.

When I finally pulled into the carpark at Jesuit Publications, I took a few moments to recover. I pulled my hair out of its ponytail-knot. I had washed my hair in the morning and tied it up when it was still damp. If my plan worked, it would be all tumbling waves when I took it out. But it wouldn’t last long, which is why I waited until just now. I looked at myself in the rearview mirror. My hair looked AMAZING. I can’t remember the last time my hair looked that good. I wanted to take a selfie. I finally understood why people TOOK selfies. But no time! Must go be a grown up writer and impress people. I tucked my one page of revolutionary ideas into my bag.  Just in case.

I must have been one of the first people to arrive, despite my fears of being late. There weren’t many cars about and the balcony seemed rather quiet. I slowed my step. I didn’t want to be too keen. I tried to open the door. It was locked. Strange. Slowly, very slowly, I pulled out my phone to check the date on the invitation.

Oh. What is WRONG with me?

You see, I had been telling everyone it was on Wednesday, I had made preparations for Wednesday, I had even emailed my editor and signed off with ‘see you Wednesday!’, I just hadn’t properly checked the date on the invitation. My “Wednesday” claim was not backed by solid evidence.

The drinks were scheduled for Thursday.

Tomorrow, my hair would be lank, my nail polish chipped and my dress would smell of day-old car sweat. I was never going to look as grown up and fabulous as I did in that moment, and there was nobody there to see it. I dragged my feet back to the car. If my life were a film, this would be the climax when the protagonist realises that there is no ‘Jesuit Publications’. She would rub her eyes and realise the office she was trying to access, was, in fact, an accountancy firm and the magazine had been a mere figment of her tortured mind.

I sat in the car, feeling rather bereft. I needed to find a bright side. In the end, I found four:

1. I hadn’t missed the event. At least it wasn’t scheduled for yesterday.
2. I had just experienced an outing without children.
3.  It actually wasn’t my fault. I said ‘see you Wednesday’ to the editor and he didn’t contradict me. He’s an editor. It’s his job to pick up on writers’ mistakes.
4. I would have time to read up on the other writers’ work, after all.

I felt a bit better as I drove back through all the traffic. When I got to the scout hall, I discovered another bright side:

5. I was totally the best-dressed mum at the scout BBQ!

Things weren’t so bad.  I was still a grown-up writer.  And if the kinder assistant asked me how things went, I could always lie through my teeth.  She doesn’t need to know.

I smiled smugly and fixed myself a plate of insect salad.

Clean Washing

 

There are two baskets of clean washing on my living room floor.

In my bedroom, there are two full baskets and three more are sitting outside my bedroom door (“tripping hazard!” says Mr Knightley). One of these baskets is full of unmatched children shoes, the rest have more clean washing.

I also discovered a basket of clean washing under the desk in the schoolroom/nursery/study and another in the boys’ room. There is a basket with dirty washing in the girls’ room, but I suspect it began life as a basket of clean washing, which got buried.

I figure I really should do something about this.  So I tipped one of the bedroom baskets into the other one.  Now I only have one basket of clean washing on my bedroom floor.

It feels good.

Oh, blog!  How I’ve missed you!  I’m sorry it’s been so long since I wrote to you.  I’ve been very busy not putting washing away.

Red Hairring

So I figure I should probably write the sequel to my previous post. The only problem is, it’s not very interesting. So I’m going to just give it to you in point form. That way you can have a story which is not to interesting to begin with, plus the added bonus of lazy writing. Enjoy.

• After I wrote my last post, many of you took the trouble to let me know you have a lovely friend/neighbour/sister-in-law who cuts hair in her garage/shed/living room and who is totally nice and easy to talk to.  No.  Just, no.  This would add a whole other layer of awkwardness to the situation.  What if they do a bad job and you want to break up with them but you can’t because they’re friends with your friend?  Ugh.  No.
  But thank you for thinking of me.
• Still more people told me about some other super lady who comes to your house to cut your hair.  Noooooooooo!  No!  I would have to clean the house thoroughly or risk the hairdresser silently judging me.  Then if it all goes pear-shaped the hairdresser knows where I live.  No thank you.
• Then, Lovely M suggested I get Pippi to cut my hair.  Apparently Pippi is quite handy with a pair of scissors, even though she isn’t a professional hairdresser.  But I had to say no.  It’s not that I didn’t trust Pippi’s ability, it’s just that I have an irrational fear that if I turn my friend into my hairdresser, all friendship will cease and I will henceforth only be able to have stilted conversations with her about a reality tv show I do not watch.  Plus I wanted to get it dyed too, and even though M was suggesting all manner of solutions to this problem involving a bottle of peroxide and a toothbrush, I ultimately decided to go with a professional.
• So, as it turns out, my visit to the hairdresser was fairly uneventful.  I brought with me a small stack of Mollie Makes magazines which I borrowed from the library to save money (except that one of the magazines went missing, so now I have to pay a big library fine instead).  The hairdresser was older than me and happy to keep conversation to a companionable minimum.  It was kind of nice.
• Here is the photo I showed her at the start of our session:

 

• 

 

• It was such a long time since I’d been to a salon that I was a little out of practice.  I was so grateful that somebody was finally doing my hair that I didn’t boss the hairdresser too much about what I wanted.  As a result, the dye job was a little odd and streaky and the colour was much more ashy than what I asked for.  And the layering didn’t frame my face well.  
• After this, the hairdresser gave me a blow wave, which made me look like a late-night televangelist’s wife named Robyn.  Or Hope.  Or maybe Candice.
• The next morning I scrutinised the colour in the full light of day.  Had she given me grey streaks?
• So here is my ‘before’ photo.  Incidentally, I thought this was my ‘sexy’ face.  All these years, when I thought I was giving my husband a smouldering look, my face actually looked like this.   Ugh.   I think I need to practice raising my eyebrow suggestively at the mirror repeatedly until I get it right.

• I think I sprained my eyebrow.
• And this is me now:
• 
• Just kidding, here I am:

 

• 
• I could do this all day:

• So here I am, really:

It’s several weeks since I got my hair done and it’s settled in a lot better now.  I even had a go fixing the layers myself with a pair of nail scissors.  The next time I go to the hairdressers, I’ll be more specific about what I want.

The very thought is making me sweat icicles.

Multiple Choice

I wrote this piece for my local multiple-birth magazine, Duplication:

This is some kind of miracle.  I sit at the Bunnings Warehouse Cafe table with my notebook out.  Steaming cappuccino to my left, two sleeping babies to my right.  My other children are happily entangling themselves on the playground next door.  This is really happening.  I am going to get some writing done.

Let me just savour this moment.

Wait.  Oh no.  Oh dear Lord, no.

I sensed her hovering before I saw her.  My twins have an admirer.  Don’t make eye-contact.  Don’t make –

“Hello!”

“Erm, hello.”  dammit!

“What lovely babies!  Are they twins?”

Really?  What kind of question is that?  Singleton babies aren’t issued in pairs, as a general rule.  I consider the following responses:

1. “No.  They were having a ‘Buy one, get one free’ sale at Babies R Us.”
2. “Nope.  That one’s a decoy.”
3. “No.  This is what the new Baby Bonus looks like.  You get a bonus baby now.”
4. “No!  Triplets!  Good Lord!  Where’d the other one go?”
5. “I think you might need glasses.  That’s one baby.”

But then I bite my tongue.  She is a kindly looking lady after all.  I remember when my eldest was born.  None of my friends had children and I was new to the area.  It would get pretty lonely during the day.  I would go out walking with the pram wearing my brightest smile and hope that somebody, anybody might offer me a small morsel of adult conversation.  Nobody ever did.  I think they could smell my desperation.  

It’s different with twins.  Whenever strangers set eyes on my baby girls, I can actually see them drop their guards.  Their features relax and they become all chatty.  It’s a beautiful thing.  I really should be more grateful that this well-meaning woman is interrupting the one pocket of me-time I’m likely to get this week.  I summon up a grin and prepare to say something encouraging.  But now the multiple-birth fangirl is reaching out to tickle my sleeping twins.  Twins who are only asleep because of the four long laps we walked of this bewildering hardware superstore.  I can feel the warm smile slide right off my face.

“You touch that foot and you die, lady!”

Yummy Mummy

Oh my giddy aunt!  I’ve just discovered the article I wrote for Australian Catholics when the twins were first born has been published!  And you can read it online for free this time!  And they call me OUR NEW COLUMNIST.

SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

This is never going to get old.

You can read the article here, by the way (please do!).

Oh!  This has made my WEEK.

Greetings from Babyland!

Often these days, when friends (or, indeed, tradesmen) come to visit me, they might find I’m in my pyjamas feeding a baby. My conversation will not be witty or sparkling, and they may have to make their own tea, but I will be happy to see them.

As you, my reader friend, come to visit me at my blog today, imagine I’m wearing pink flannelette pyjamas with a piece of toast stuck in my hair.  My writing may seem a little stilted and bland, but, gosh, I’m glad to see you!

My beautiful twins are now almost eight weeks old.  For the most part, I’m enjoying my vacation in Baby Land.  We’ve developed a simple routine of feeding and nappies, and lessons and feeding, and feeding and washing, and feeding and feeding.     And cuddles.  There are always plenty of baby cuddles to go around (though they sometimes come with a side order of baby spew).  It’s really rather blissful.

We don’t often leave the house, but when we do, it seems we achieve instant celebrity status.  Everybody wants to talk to us and ask us (the same five) questions and tell us about the twins in their life.  Most of the time, my extroverted nature revels in the attention, but it can be a real challenge if we’re trying to do something in a hurry.

I’ve decided to christen the girls “Daisy and Poppy” after the mischievous twins in Ben and Holly’s Little Kingdom.  Not exactly literary, I know, but it seems to fit.  Those of you who don’t have preschoolers in the home may not have heard of Ben and Holly.  Those of you who do will have heard far, far too much.

And, now, if you’ll excuse me, Daisy is letting me know my services as a milk maid are urgently required.

Thank you for coming to visit!

Welcome Twins!

On August 3 (yes, that long ago!) we welcomed a pair of healthy twin girls into the world. They are truly delightful. Twins are pretty relentless, because, well, there are two of them.  I’m trying to get better at accepting all offers of help and even asking people to help me.  This goes against the grain a bit.  I like to be Capable Woman.

The good news is, I spoke to my husband, and he agreed to relax the no-photos-of-the-children rule just this once, because, let’s face it, newborns are pretty anonymous.  And I’ve taken Mr Knightley saying I can share a photo of the twins to mean pretty much the same as saying I can share several photos.  How can I choose between these pics?

 

 

In real life, the twins have the loveliest names, honouring both my wonderful grandmothers.  In blog life, I still can’t think of what to call them.  I was convinced I was having at least one boy, so I had thought about what to call them if I had one of each (Luke and Leia) or two boys (Fred and George), but I never thought of what to call two girls.  Can you think of any girl twins in literature or popular culture?  Or even pairs of girls?  I can’t come up with anything that suits.  Sweet Valley High and The Twins at St Clare’s have girl twins but it’s not really a fit, plus I was more of a Babysitters Club/Malory Towers sort of girl.  The gumnut babies are actually boys (I know, right?) and using the names Snugglepot and Cuddlepie would get real old real fast.  Anne of Green Gables had girl twins when she grew up (called Nan and Di) – but who would know that?  And calling them Thing 1 and Thing 2 would just be mean.   I’ll just have to think on it some more – if you can think of anything, please, please leave a comment!

Actually, leave a comment even if you can’t think of anything – I really need something to keep me amused at three in the morning!