Everydaystranger

“It was horrible,” I gasp, huddled under a blanket. Angus is rubbing my back, a tumbler of whiskey in my shaking hands. Mascara has run down my face in rivulets.
“It’s ok now, you’re ok now,” he soothes.
“I couldn’t face it. It was so awful, I couldn’t believe it. I thought I [...]

Hi!
Nick here, sneaking onto the PC while my Mom is busy making up the formula we know and love. It’s vintage 2008 stuff, really nice.
Anyway, we’ve been really busy here. Yesterday my Dad found a cheap fare to France for the family. He said it cost 20 pounds, so I reckon we [...]

This is maybe going to make me unpopular and potentially end up in nasty emails, but I promise there’s a reason for what I’m about to say.
I weighed myself on Sunday. Shockingly, I discovered I’d lost another kilo (2.2 pounds). I am two sizes smaller than I was before I heaved twins around. [...]

Melissa and Jeff arrive today for a 5-day stay – Angus has just gone off to the airport to get them. This means that posting and mails will be slower this week, because a 15 year-old with a penchance for Googling about the band The Killers and an 11 year-old who’s just gotten into [...]

It’s a holiday here, and a holiday on Monday as well. We’ll be taking this four day weekend to do boring things like fix the heating (apparently we gave up hot water for Lent. We’ll not be doing that again.) and taking it easy. The babies are curled up on a beanbag, [...]

I am run off my feet this morning and it’s put me in a fairly fierce mood. It started when we woke up to learn the central water heating pump had packed its bags and left. This is bad. It’s especially bad as we are getting rid of it in two months [...]

When I was a little girl, I wanted to be a lawyer. Not a ballerina, not a teacher, not any other stereotypical little girl dream. I wanted to be a lawyer and the more pernicious the better. Perhaps I was already armed with an argumentative nature and the desire to ground people’s [...]

10th March 2008
Dear Neighbour (Ha! Did you see that, Neighbour? We spelled it the British way, because we’re trying to unleash some subliminal companionship here! We’re bonding! We’re on the same page! Enjoy, because I will pluck my beaver clean with some rusty tweezers before I will ever pronounce it [...]

On Wednesday, still feeling a little rough, I drove to the middle of fucking nowhere to have one of those “work you up thoroughly” kind of physicals.
I get there and am immediately gifted with a little cup which to wee in, which if you’re a woman means you’ll be rinsing the urine off your hand [...]

We are largely recovering. Nick and Nora are ensconced in the warm loving arms of the nursery this morning, even if Nick’s diapers are still slightly suspect (but we’re out of contagion zone although we’ve been through over 100 diapers) so I think it’s safe to say that we’re going to be ok. [...]

Nearly recovered.
Come back tomorrow?
-H.

Well, on the plus side, at least I know how they’ve been feeling.

And to wrap up a week of baby-related posts (I have non-baby and non-feces things to write about next week, I swear it)…
Nora is weak as a kitten and has lost a great deal of weight she couldn’t afford to lose (we’d like to give a great big “Fuck you!” and a cheery wave to [...]

On top of spaghetti,
All covered with cheese,
I lost my poor meatball,
When somebody sneezed.
The babies like a new song when I change their diapers. They grew tired of the old ones but they love this one. I tend to sing it loud and slightly off-key: On top of spa-GHE-tiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii….all covered with CHEESE………
Last night [...]

Nora and I packed up and went to the doctor’s office yesterday morning after changing our 7 millionth foul diaper. I had taken a shower that morning but, like the scent of lilacs on the breeze or fish and chips in the salty pier air, I carried with me the delicate and fragile aroma [...]

Yet another first.
Nora’s first illness.
Timing, babe. It’s all about the timing.
The nursery called late afternoon yesterday. Nora had a temperature. The asked if they could administer some Calpol which, frankly, is nectar of the baby gods and I said yes to. We went to pick them up and brought them home [...]

This morning for the first time this winter, it started to snow.
I got ready. I got the babies ready. I changed their clothes and snuggled them and let them watch CBeebies while we showered.
I’m in the office right now. I’m in the office surrounded by office people for the first time since [...]

Yesterday in England it was Mother’s Day. At 7 am I woke to the sound of squealing babies entertaining themselves in their cot, as they do, and when I started to get up Angus told me to return to bed immediately. He left the room and came back with fresh coffee. Then [...]

It’s that time again.
Mel’s Book Tour has hit again, and this time it was with the book Embryo Culture. If you don’t know Mel, she’s like the Den Mother of the fertility treatment world, and is so amazingly organized I want to bury my head in shame.
The book was more of an auto-biography-meets-National-Geographic. [...]