Conversation

Yesterday my mummy came over for tea, bringing tulips, doughnuts, chocolate cheesecake and an afternoon of interesting conversation.

We covered family, friends, politics, parenting, photography, the archbishop of Canterbury, Islam, memories and the meaning of life in a couple of hours and still managed to find time to eat cake, drink tea and coo lovingly at the baby.

As always, she left me refreshed, inspired, happy and thoughtful. There's no one else in the world that I can talk to in quite the same way.

One Truth

Life's more fun when Daddy's home.

Nap Time

Some days you can change your fortunes by getting on and getting out. Others, you just have to accept defeat and take solace in the inestimable pleasure of an afternoon nap.

Weighing In

The health visitor was so surprised with the reading that she made me lift up the baby whilst she re-set the scales. He'd gained 2lb in 2 weeks and now weighed 13lb 08.5oz.

"You're having no trouble with your feeding then," she said with a chuckle, forgetting our earlier conversation about raw, cracked nipples.

"He's having no trouble" I said.

She marked his weight at the very top of the rainbow growth curve and informed me that he's now in the 99.6th percentile for his age. I smiled as I tried to force his head back through the hole in the vest-top that's already too small, because I didn't know what else to do.

It shouldn't bother me that my 4-week-old baby weighs the same as the 5-month-old baby sitting next to him, but for some reason it does.

Maybe it's because I'm worried that he'll always be defined by his 'bigness'; maybe it's because earlier today a stranger ignored him completely whilst cooing over the 'little baby' of exactly the same age; maybe it's because it feels as though his babyhood is slipping away that little bit quicker than it should...

Escape

Woody Allen famously said that 80% of success was just showing up and I would add that 80% of happiness is just getting out.

Getting out of the house has never been someting that I'm particularly good at. I'm lazy, I'm shy, I like my own company and I'll happily pass entire days without setting foot outside my own front door.

But on the days when I do make myself get out, even if it's only to go for a walk or to buy groceries, I feel better; more capable, less ponderous.

My Dad always says that any experience is better than no experience at all and I think there's a lot of truth in that.

Yesterday I stayed indooors all day and by the evening I was morose. Today I took John to the 'under 1's' group in Ellesmere and life has opened up once again.

I must try to get out through the front door more often.

Transience

Life feels very precious and very transient at the moment. My baby boy is changing and growing by the day and I feel the need to document, to record, to savour the wondrous moments that are flitting past me like the shadows of bats at dusk.

This blog is an attempt to hold down happiness and to record the little moments that are otherwise lost in the gaps between life's great events. It's my way of capturing and celebrating the ordinary and extraordinary moments of my everyday life.