Dear Cooper and Finn

25th December 2018 Dear Cooper and Finn, It's here, your first Christmas! We all wore our festive jumpers, and by some Christmas miracle, all the baubles on the tree remained intact. We had a quiet day, but it was most definitely not chilled. No day ever is now you two are here. Although we really missed seeing family and friends, it felt really nice not to spend the day driving round and visiting everyone, never really able to relax because we're always thinking about where we need to be next. We gave you a ride-on tiger and ladybird, a telephone with eyes on wheels, and a dancing robot called Beatbo. Then we popped round to our neighbours’

house for a couple of glasses of prosecco and left once you'd knocked one over each. Dinner was at about 4pm, after your second nap of the day. We had roast turkey, pigs in blankets, mashed potato, roast potato, cauliflower cheese, mashed turnip, carrots, broccoli, stuffing balls, mint sauce, and lingonberry jam. We thought you'd eaten loods but then we found it all under the table afterwards. Then we watched Arthur Christmas, put you in the bath and to bed, and your dad and I flopped on the sofa, wondering where the day had gone and why we were so tired. xxx

Dear Cooper and Finn

24th December 2018 Dear Cooper and Finn, It's Christmas Eve! One of my favourite days of the year. I think I like it even more than Christmas Day. For me it's a day without pressure. A day of quiet anticipation before the big day. A day of looking forward to something, which is an incredibly enjoyable experience in itself. I haven't worked on Christmas Eve for a few years now, but I have done many times. First at the chip shop in Frosterley. Then at the Centre for Life in Newcastle where someone once told me I'd ruined Christmas for his 8-year-old daughter because we had to tell people who tried to join the queue when we were close to closing that they wouldn't be able to go ice skating. And one year when I was working from home at mam and dad's house as a People's Champion for innocent smoothies, an angry customer phoned me at 4.03pm and demanded that I trudge to the postbox through the snow to post her some smoothie vouchers. But not today, thankfully. I'm just sitting at home, enjoying the day with you and your dad, thinking about what to watch and eat next. If I was seventeen again again, I'd be getting ready to go out down Crook tonight, wearing a dress and no coat even in the snow. I’d jump around and shout along to All I want for Christmas is you, have a few Taboo and lemonades, and get chips, cheese and garlic sauce before click-clacking across the cobbles in my silver satin kitten heels across the cobbles to dad's car. (Thanks dad.) xxx

Dear Cooper and Finn

17th December 2018 Dear Cooper and Finn, I'm so excited for Christmas now. It'll be the first time we've ever spent Christmas Day at home, just the four of us, and I can't wait to start our own traditions. And by that I mean force you to do all the things I want to do and eat the things I want to eat, and if you try to resist say "but it's Christmas” with sad eyes. I used to love it when we got the Christmas food in the house. Food we never had at any other time of the year. There’d be a twelve-pack of Pepsi, a pretzel snack tray, Bombay mix, Shloer, honey roasted cashews, Twiglets, satsumas, mince pies, Celebrations, After Eights, and Chocolate Orange. I'd wake up to a pillowcase of presents from Santa, then we’d take it in turns to open the presents from under the tree, then dad and I would stuff our faces with chocolate and Twiglets and mince pies as mam repeatedly told us to stop eating because we'd spoil our our dinner (she was right). We'd watch Carols from Kings, The Snowman, and the Top of the Pops Christmas special, and I'd record the best films on the brand new videotapes dad's friend Sandy always bought me. I hope you love Christmas Day as much as I do. X X X

Dear Cooper and Finn

Dear Cooper and Finn

3rd December 2018
Dear Cooper and Finn,

While we were queving at the post office today I saw a box full of leather effect pocket diaries on the counter. And it made me a bit sad that they probably won’t sell many. That one day no one will buy them anymore and they’ll stop making them. They were just like my gran used to buy and my mam still buys now. Whenever I tell her what dates we’ll be visiting she writes them straight down in there so she knows not to make any appointments at the same time, because she wants to see us as much as possible. I don’t want her to ever not do that. X X

Dear Cooper and Finn

Dear Cooper and Finn

14th November 2018

Dear Cooper and Finn,
I thought nothing could beat your perfect gummy toothless smiles but now you’ve both got two perfect little stumpy teeth right in the middle of your mouth at the top, and another two at the bottom directly below them, and it’s the best thing I ' ve ever seen. X X X

Dear Cooper and Finn

9th November 2018
Dear Cooper and Finn,
You're almost ten months old now, and I’ve been back at work for almost six. I'm very lucky that I work from home and I do a lot of work in the evenings, so I get to spend way more time with you than other people who work full time get to spend with their kids. I’ve got a job I love, and I still get to look after you. I‘ve got it all! It’s intense though. To cram it all in I can’t afford to waste a single moment of the day. I flick the kettle on to boil and run upstairs with the clean washing. I cook the next day’s meal while you’re eating your tea. I hoover under the sofas while you’re crawling about on the floor. I write things for work in my head while I’m busy doing other things, and repeat them over and over until I get chance to write them down. It’s exhausting, but it's my choice to do it

like this. For me it’s worth it, and for the most part I enjoy it. It’s not possible to completely understand why someone makes the choices they do, because you can never fully understand what it’s like to be them. You don’t have exactly the same experiences that they do, and even if you did, you wouldn’t experience them in the exact same way. so rather than worrying too much about what other people are doing and why, you have to try and trust that they’re doing the right thing for them in the circumstances. And if they’re not, hopefully they’ll work it out for themselves in the end. XXX

Dear Cooper and Finn

31st October 2018

Dear Cooper and Finn,

After a full-on morning getting us all ready to leave the house, I arrived at Cannon Street Station a little peckish. I‘ll pop into M&S and grab a sandwich, I thought. It sounds so easy when I say it like that. Only M&S is crowded and cramped, and your buggy is pretty big, so I struggled to even get close enough to the sandwiches to pick one. After being showered with tuts and sighs by people who clearly thought they were more entitled to a sandwich than me, I eventually got my hands on a prawn mayonnaise. Level 1 complete. Now I just had to make it through the queue. It looked tricky, and I considered trying to quickly dash through it alone, but I thought it would be frowned upon if I left you behind the Percy Pigs rack. We got down the first leg of the queue OK, but the turn was too tight for us so I had to reverse out to the sound of more tuts and sighs and abandon the sandwich I’d fought so hard to get amidst the flapjacks and brownie bars. Then I flounced out in tears, and pushed you down a step forwards because it suited my flounce better than turning round and going down it backwards sensibly, almost tipping you out in the process. Reading this back now I should have just asked someone for help. It would have been nice if someone offered too. I’ll be more inclined to do both in future. XXX