Dear Cooper and Finn

9th March 2019

Dear Cooper and Finn, I still miss you. I really do. But something happened today that I've been wishing for for a long time. I woke up, and I didn't have to look after anyone but myself. I didn't have to clean up poo or rush around getting breakfast ready while you both shout at me to hurry up. No one bit me or tried to pull my teeth or my eyes out. I just read the paper and drank a coffee, went to the gym, and then just drove myself to the shops without having to take nappies or snacks or plan where to feed you at midday. And it was lovely. And then I walked past the Build-a-Bear shop and thought how nice it would be if you were with me and we could build some bears together. And then I saw lots of parents pulling their kids around in these fun trucks and I thought how much you would love that, and I felt a bit sad and lonely. But then I reminded myself that I spend 99% of my time with you, and that I'd really been looking forward to having some time to myself, so I vowed to make the most of it. Because even if you love someone with every cell of your body, it's OK to want to do something without them occasionally. It doesn’t mean you love them any less. The only reason I can enjoy that time without you is because I know it's not forever. Because next Saturday I'll be with you, trying to get the banana pancakes to cool fast enough to stop you shouting and banging the table. Not reading the paper and not really minding because I did that last week, and it turns out playing with you two and pretending to be the tickle monster and letting your pudgy little hands poke and prod my face is actually way more fun.

XXX

Dear Cooper and Finn

4th March 2019

Dear Cooper and Finn,

Keith Flint died today. His music with The Prodigy is the soundtrack to so many memories for me and your dad. The first time I ever heard them was when I was with my mam and dad at their friend Kay's house, and her son Jeffrey played Firestarter on a cassette. I wasn't sure what I thought - I'd never heard anything like it - but I said I liked it to sound cool. Then I saw the video on Top of the pops, and mam and dad said it was awful, so I said I didn't like it (I did). Then eight years later I heard it live for the first time with your dad at the Metro club in Melbourne and got so close to Keith Flint (I feel like he's one of those people whose names you have to say in full each time) that some of his sweat sprayed onto my face. It was amazing. Since then we've seen them at V Festival, Glastonbury, Newcastle, Brixton - all over! I always thought we'd see them again. I'm sosad we won't. XXX

Dear Cooper and Finn

25th February 2019

Dear Cooper and Finn,

We walked to the park this afternoon (well, I did, you two just sat back and enjoyed the view and moaned at me whenever I slowed down — you're pretty heavy now FYI). I pushed you both on the swings and you squealed and giggled and had that look on your faces like you can't believe the swings were free because surely if people knew how amazing they were they’d be on them all the time, so you try and hold in your glee so that other people don't catch on and you get to keep swinging forever. Except you can't swing forever, and when the time came to lift you out and put you in your pushchair to go home, you cried and looked at me like I was the meanest person in the whole wide world. And I felt terrible. (Nor terrible enough to let you keep swinging though.) If you could talk, you'd have said you wanted to stay on the swings and asked why we had to leave. And I’d have said something very boring and adult like 'Well it would be lovely to just swing on swings all day but sadly life doesn't work like that and we need to get home so you can throw food all over the floor for half an hour sorry I mean eat your tea and go to bed.’ And then we'd have entered into a negotiation and you'd have won an extra 3 minutes and 47 seconds of swing time because I am weak. But you can't talk yet, so I am making the most of being able to just put you back in your pushchair and take you home without an argument. As always, you have got me thinking about why we can't just swing on swings all day. And when you're 47 and I feel ok about leaving you in the park by yourself, you're welcome to do that if you want. Although you probably won't, because you'll have discovered lots of other things you enjoy by then. And it is important to spend time doing the things you enjoy and not always worry about getting home in time for tea. But if everyone just swang on swings all day, who would make the swings? XXX

Dear Cooper and Finn

2nd February 2019

Dear Cooper and Finn,

It's ten past midnight, I’ve just finished work, and I'm tired. It's Saturday tomorrow and old me would have probably had a little lie in until 8.30 then pottered about making breakfast and endless cups of tea while reading the magazine bit of the newspaper. But lie-ins don't happen anymore. Nor does pottering, either. Nowadays I just charge to and from the washing machine, showering you all with stray socks as I go. I'm not going to lie and say I don't miss lie-ins and pottering, because I really, really do. But I’m smiling now just thinking about seeing your little faces in the morning. I love hearing you chat to each other in the morning, then walking into your room and seeing you smile up at me through barely open eyes. I love how warm you are when I pick you up to get you ready, and how soft your cheeks feel against mine. I love the sound of your snuffling and burbling and watching you come to life and get ready for another day of discovery. I'm not so keen on the contents of your nappy or the way you pull my hair and grab my cheeks. And having to chase you around the bedroom to put your trousers on can be a little tiresome. But all things considered, it's a pretty great way to start the day. Just try not to throw too much porridge around tomorrow, ok? XXX

Dear Cooper and Finn

20th January 2019

Dear Cooper and Finn,

You are one! We took you to Franco Manca for tea wearing old-man checky shirts that were at least a size too big, like the ones the lads used to wear on nights out when I was 15. You sucked the topping off each slice of pizza before chucking the rest on the floor, and had your first ever apple juice, ice cream, and cake. We sang Happy Birthday to you both, which you seemed to enjoy, and reflected on the most amazing year of our lives. My previous most amazing year was 2012, when I held a piece of a fibreglass replica of John Lennon's face in the London 2012 Olympic closing ceremony. And after that it was 2014, when your dad and I got married. Your dad can't remember what his favourite years were, but a few days after you were born I asked him if he was happy and he said it was the best thing he’d ever done after marrying me (not that he really did much). So thank you for being here. Thank you for teaching me to look at the world more closely, and to find joy in smaller things. And also to be present in the moment rather than always thinking of the next thing, because I don't want to miss a bit of you. I love you. X X X

Dear Cooper and Finn

17th January 2019

Dear Cooper and Finn,

I've been wanting to write and create some things for a while, but other stuff keeps getting in the way. So one of my aims for this year is to make time for the things I really want to do. I don't have time to do much outside of work and being with you, but it there's something that's really important to me — something I feel like I need to do in order to feel like me, then I'm going to make it happen. I'm going to ask myself what things I'd regret not doing if I died tomorrow (morbid but effective). When I worked at innocent, the founders Rich, Adam and Jon used to talk about the ' Eastenders test’. They said that if you were really serious about setting up your own business, then you had to want to work on that in the evenings, instead of watching Eastenders (or Real Housewives in my case, although the joy of Real Housewives is that you can have it on in the background while you work on your other dreams and not really miss much). Some other great advice is that if you want do something, instead of thinking about how much you want to do it and feeling sad that you don’t have the time, you should just start doing it. Even if you only get to do a tiny bit. Just start. Don't think about all the things in your way and how hard it's going to be. Get cracking, and work all that out as you go. The important thing is to start, and keep going. Xxx

Dear Cooper and Finn

13th January 2019

Dear Cooper and Finn,

We got home today from a lovely weekend in Southwold with our friends Heli and Mark. Your dad and I met Heli years ago when we went to V Festival with our other friends Annabel and Craig, who’d persuaded your dad to buy the tickets at around four times face value from a resale site when we had a party at his mam and dad's house while they were away. It turned out to be one of the best decisions he's ever made - we had years of fun at that festival with so many friends. We spent Saturday afternoon drinking champagne and talking fast and loud like you do when you haven't seen people ..love for a while. You want to fill each other in on the essentials, but you know you don't have to say everything that's happened since you last saw each other. You can just pick up and carry on in the present, and fill in the gaps when you need to. You two were thrilled at the change in surroundings and all the open space and spent the whole time crawling round and round the kitchen table and up and down the hallway. You were also enchanted by the dogs, Meg and Kosmo, and did everything you could to make them love you. In the evening Mark served us up his famous beer and Guinness stew. We've loved it in the past but sadly this time he'd made it with gone-off suet and it tasted a little rancid. It turned out to be a great test of the limits of politeness, anyway. Heli piped up straight away and told him it was absolutely vile. I kept mumbling that it wasn't so bad really and ate about a third of it. And your dad insisted it was absolutely delicious and ate the whole thing (which worringly I think is more a reflection on his taste buds than his manners). Before we left today we had a bracing walk on the beach and the most delicious fish and chips at the Sole Bay Fish company. I was a bit worried about eating in but far from making the other diners hate us, you actually managed to charm them! Thanks lads. XXX

Dear Cooper and Finn

6th January 2019 Dear Cooper and Finn, One thing I wasn't really prepared for is how hard it is to do things with you. Obviously I knew I wouldn't be going to fancy restaurants and bars, and I knew that just getting out the house would be hard because of all the things we'd have to do to get ready. But I didn't think about precisely how many individual tasks would be involved, and how uniquely challenging each one would be, and what it would feel like to do every single one of those tasks twice, for two uniquely challenging individuals. I wrote a little guide to going to the park today, just so I could remember it.
How to take the kids to the park:

1. Wrestle them into coats and hats, put them somewhere safe, and put on your coat 2. Open front door, go back for pushchair and carry it through the hall, taking care not to gouge holes in the walls or whack the kids round the head as you go 3. Run down steps with pushchair and erect it 4. Go back for one child, reassuring the other one that you're not leaving them alone forever 5. Carry first child down steps and put in pushchair 6. Repeat for child two

7. Go back and lock door

8. Realise you've forgotten your phone/water/changing bag/soul 9. WHY DID YOU PUT YOUR COAT ON YOU’RE ON FIRE 10. It's actually pretty dark now 11. Go to bed?

Dear Cooper and Finn

30th December 2018 Dear Cooper and Finn, We've been at home in Weardale for a few days now, and it's been lovely. We had Christmas Day number 2 with gran Jan and grandad George on Friday, and we all wore paper Christmas hats and watched you wipe food around your mouths before throwing it on the floor. Then you opened your presents - some great ones, like the musical instruments and the toy cars- and some not quite so great ones, like the whale shape sorter and an assortment of other odd gifts from the £5 shop that looked like bargains on the surface, but once opened revealed fundamental design flaws. Like the fake Tamagotchi I got from Penrith market when I was twelve, which died on day 7 every time, no matter what. Then on Sunday we had our third Christmas Day of the year with grandma Hazel and granda Geoff, and aunty Gemma, uncle Alan, and cousin Freya. We had the full works all over again, and it was chaos in the best way, because we were all so grateful to have ach other there. It was also pretty stressful - you can be grateful for something and get annoyed by it at the same time. That's just life. X X X