Having kids will change your life

There's nothing that has the power to change your life quite so much as becoming a parent. Whatever life was like before you had kids, I can guarantee you that you won't even recognise it once they arrive. The short list of things that having a baby changes is:

EVERYTHING.

The slightly more in-depth list consists of:

Sleep

How much you sleep will change DRAMATICALLY overnight. Literally. Because yesterday you didn't have a baby and today you do. It's just like that. How much you value sleep will change too. Before you had kids, sleep was just something you did at the end of every day because your body told you that you had to. You probably didn't really give it that much thought, did you? But now your sleep is precious. Now four uninterrupted hours on the bounce is the Holy Grail. A whole night? Are you out of your fucking mind? That's not happening for a long time yet. I am yet to meet a parent with young children  - mother or father - who does not feel nostalgic about sleep. Oh, and those Sunday morning lie-ins you used to have? Yeah. I think you can see where this is going.

Freedom

When you don't have to plan every outing around the needs of a small child, you take your freedom for granted. Why wouldn't you? Before you have kids you don't have to think about packing a changing bag and having spare nappies and wipes in the car. You don't have to worry about whether or not you can breastfeed in the outfit you're wearing or if there'll be somewhere to heat up a bottle. You need to go out, so you go out. But once children come along, you can't do that anymore. You either have to plan the outing with military precision and accept the fact that your baby will probably unleash a poonami the second you sit down on the bus/start the car engine OR you need to find somebody to babysit. Somebody your child is familiar and comfortable with - and I really can't stress that part enough. Still feel like going out? Nah. Maybe tomorrow, eh?

Worry

It is ASTOUNDING how much parents worry about their kids. When they're babies, you worry if they're eating, shitting and sleeping enough (probably; undoubtedly more; and NO). When they get a little older, you start to worry about those dreaded milestones. And everybody else is worrying about them too (or being smug about them, which is pretty much the same thing), so they're THE topic of discussion at every playgroup, play date and clinic. Inescapable. After that comes behaviour (toddler tyranny is normal; anybody who says otherwise is lying) and thereafter it's a constant snowball of worry until you die. I mean, that sounds bleak, but apparently it's true. So get comfy and settle in for the ride.

Social Life

Okay, this one is tough. But the truth is, you might lose some friends after you have kids. As far as your friends with kids go, you're probably safe. When you cancel on them because you're too fucking mind-bogglingly exhausted to leave the house after 7:30pm, they will more than likely understand and feel secretly relieved. But when the same thing happens with your friends who don't have kids, they might not have quite the same level of understanding. That's not their fault, by the way, and they're not doing it to be assholes; they just have no personal experience of how knackering it can be to stagger through the bath and bedtime routine and then have to drag yourself into the shower and attempt to make yourself look something like human. So be prepared for some changes in your social circle; it's normal and it will be okay.

Your Home

After almost four years of motherhood, I honestly cannot remember what it was like to live in a home that wasn't full of toys and nappies and bottles. I used to have ornamental shit all over the place and laundry that was actually done and ironed and put away before it took on laundryzilla status. Now... Well, now I spend a lot of time trying to come up with ingenious toy storage solutions and despairing over laundry. None of my kitchen cupboards open without adult intervention and there's a lock on the OUTSIDE of my bathroom door to stop small people letting even smaller people in to rifle through the bin and unravel all the toilet roll. Sometimes, when I forget to put that lock on after I leave the bathroom, I find shampoo bottles and sponges down the toilet. Oh, and O actually pushed one of the knots in the floorboards all the way through earlier this week, so I had to call a joiner for advice about how to bung it up and fill it in. Such fun!

Honestly, reading this has probably made you think that parenthood is just an endless nightmare with no redeeming features, but that's not true. There are a lot of shitty moments when you have young children. Literally and figuratively. But there are really great moments too. There are the first moments of the morning when your kids are inexplicably ecstatic to see you. There are the moments when they climb into your lap with a book on a rainy afternoon. There are kisses and cuddles and I love you's and there is the simple fact that you are one of their absolute favourite people in the world. All of that is pretty cool really, and it's more than worth all the other stuff.

The "Motherhood Challenge"

Today I am taking on the "Motherhood Challenge". And by taking on, I do NOT mean taking part. I'm not on Facebook, so I've only heard about this new fad through other people and my husband has shown me what it entails. For those of you who don't know, the Motherhood Challenge consists of picking the pictures of you and/or your children that you feel best sum up why you love being a mother. Cute, right? But then you're supposed to tag a bunch of your mummy friends who you think are doing an awesome job at motherhood, and that's a little less cute.

So, let's break this down. First of all, there's a good chance you'll forget to tag one of your mummy friends (or maybe you won't tag her on purpose because you think she's doing a shitty job), and when she sees your Motherhood Challenge and realises that you left her out of your "awesome mummy" list, she's probably going to feel really bad. I mean, she might not care at all. But if she's having a fucking awful day and feeling really emotionally fragile, seeing that you left her out might just make her feel a whole lot worse.

Then there's this: Some mothers out there are struggling. I don't mean that they're just having a difficult day and maybe the kids were late to school this morning. We all have those days. I'm talking about the mums out there who are battling mental health issues, like post-natal depression, and feeling really fucking alone and inadequate. Maybe it takes a mother who has experienced that mental struggle to identify this seemingly harmless "challenge" as potentially triggering, but surely then that further underlines the distinct lack of education around the issue. Surely things like the Motherhood Challenge only serve to widen the chasm and perpetuate the shame culture even more.

Last January, I was struggling. I felt like the worst mother in the world. I wanted to run away, and do you know what made it worse? Breastfeeding selfies, because the #brelfie was a huge thing at the time and it wasn't happening for us (which is not the only reason I was having a hard time; that story can be found here). I felt like such a failure and, worse than that, I felt totally isolated by my catastrophic lack of success because everywhere I looked I saw calm, beautiful pictures of mothers breastfeeding their little babies. It wasn't that I couldn't be happy for those women and their babies, it was that I was in such a dark, horrible little place that I just couldn't cope. I compared myself to those mothers and found myself entirely lacking, so much so that I was convinced my children would be better off without me.

I'm not telling you that you shouldn't post breastfeeding selfies or take part in the Motherhood Challenge, I'm just reaching out to you in the hope that you might take a moment to consider if any of your mummy friends might be struggling before you post your pictures. Right now, the odds are that you know someone who thinks she's a crap mother and that every single other woman in the world is doing a better job of motherhood than she is. And the worst part is that she probably isn't talking about it because she feels ashamed. So, maybe instead of posting photos of your most perfect moments, perhaps you need to let your friends know that you're there for them and that they have your support and not your judgement. Which is not to say that I think you are judging them, but mental health issues can change our perceptions, and depression is the darkest, coldest, loneliest little mountaintop in the world and the view is of everyone else doing better and being happier than you ever could.

I'm not trying to preach to you. That's not why I'm here. I'm here because motherhood is fucking hard sometimes, and I feel like we need to make sure that we don't alienate the mums who are struggling by pushing them further into the mental confines of their own shame. Most of all, I want you to know that if you're struggling, you are not alone.

A post in favour of routines

Before I had kids, I didn’t realise that routines were such a controversial, touchy subject. But apparently they are, so I’m going to out myself in this post as a routine aficionado. I love routines. I’m a routine junkie. “What’s happening next, Davina?” “I know! I know! I have a ROUTINE.” I actually didn’t start out on the parenting journey thinking I am going to have a routine. It just kind of happened, and it actually happened because, like a lot of babies, Toddler Taylor was extremely fussy from around 5pm every day. He would have a breastfeed on the sofa at 5ish and usually fall asleep when he was done. But he wouldn’t stay asleep for more than about half an hour, then he would wake up crabby and he didn’t want to do anything. Everything made him cross. Except, inexplicably, watching In The Night Garden (which I fucking hate because come on; what is it even about, really?). So we would watch that and then I would muffle him up (even though it wasn’t that cold because it was, I think, August), stick him in the pram and I would walk to the next village and back and he would usually sleep a bit. Then when we got home he’d have a bath, a bottle and go to bed. Eventually, he naturally started to happily stay awake after his 5pm feed and I could put him straight to bed at 7pm, which is what time he still goes to bed now.

 

He also had a nap schedule which was adjusted as he grew and his sleep needs changed, but I can’t really remember what it was. Which is weird because it wasn’t all that long ago, but there it is. I’m really tired. I don’t remember much of anything these days. It broke the day up into manageable chunks so I could get other stuff done while he was napping, and it also meant that he knew what was coming next. Baby Taylor also has a nap schedule, which is largely modelled on what I can remember of Toddler Taylor’s schedule, but his medication makes him very tired sometimes and so I think he naps a little more than his brother did at the same age. He knows when it’s time for his nap and will often go and stand at the bottom of the stairs, waiting to be taken up to bed (even if he does thrash like a seizing shark when we actually enter his bedroom and he realises this shit’s for real).

 

All that being said, I wouldn’t want you to think that I enforce this routine with an iron fist. Because I don’t. I know my children and I can read their behaviour. If Baby Taylor doesn’t look tired when he’s due for his nap, he stays up until he starts rubbing his eyes and grizzling. As soon as he does that, I whisk him off to bed and he’s asleep before I’ve even left the room. Similarly, if he’s already exhibiting sleepy behaviour before his usual nap time, I don’t make him stay up until he’s screaming the house down with exhaustion. And, contrary to the belief held by one particular member of my family with whom I no longer have a relationship (for reasons unrelated to this issue), the fact that my kids have a routine does not stop me from getting out and doing stuff with them. It simply means that I plan ahead a bit so I know what little adjustments to make during the rest of the day to avoid a bedtime meltdown in the evening. Because that’s no fun for anybody.

 

I don’t have these routines to make life easy for myself, although it does sometimes help to know that I have pockets of time during the day in which to get boring, necessary shit like cleaning and ironing done. The reason I’ve stuck to the idea of having a schedule for my children is so that they know what’s coming next. The thing about kids is that they don’t have any concept of time, so Baby Taylor’s nap schedule has been particularly handy in helping Toddler Taylor to understand the layout of the day a little better. For example, right now he loves to play board games, and he has an impressive stack of them. Board games have lots of pieces and they are often quite small. You can see where I’m going with this. Board games simply cannot be played while Baby Taylor is awake and likely to, at best, steal and lose the pieces and, at worst, steal and choke on them. Most afternoons Toddler Taylor will ask me “mummy, can we play a game?” and I will reply “yes, when your brother has gone to bed we can play a game.” So he then knows that he is going to get some one-on-one time with me to play board games while his brother is sleeping. He knows that it is a certainty, a “when” rather than an “if”. And I feel like that’s important for kids, for them to know what to expect from their day. It’s jarring enough being small and not having much control over your emotions without people surprising you all the time.

 

However, none of the above is to say that I think there is anything at all wrong with not having a routine or a nap schedule or whatever. It doesn’t work for everyone, just like co-sleeping or baby-led weaning. All of these things are choices that we make with our specific – and very individual – children in mind. For my part, both of my children are largely very happy and sociable little people. They thrive on their routine and we all work better as a family because of it. When anybody else looks after our children, we can tell them what time they usually nap and eat and nobody has to play the tired-or-teething game with Baby Taylor. My husband works different shifts every week, so in the midst of that chaos, having a routine for my children helps me to at least have control over one aspect of our life as a family unit. It helps me to plan. It works for me and it works for my family. I am pro-routine, but I am also pro-doing-whatever-works-for-your-family. So my one teeny little bit of advice here, at the close of this post, is to parent your children in a way that takes care of all of your best interests and not give a toss what anybody else thinks. Mother (and father) knows best!

Longing

I'm going to say this now and then I am going to put it away in a box and try to move on from it. So here goes:

I achingly long for a daughter.

Let me be absolutely clear about this; I would not change my sons for anything. I would not trade either of them for a daughter. To live without ever having known one or the other is an utterly intolerable notion. Despite remembering with cold clarity how sickeningly disappointed I was to hear "you're having a boy" at the anomaly scan of my second pregnancy, if someone offered me the chance to go back in time and swap that boy for a girl I would not take it. I cannot imagine what life would be without, specifically, him. But if there had been a guarantee after I had Baby Taylor that my next child would be a girl, I would not have hesitated for a second.

For as long as I can remember, I have imagined having a daughter. I assumed, perhaps arrogantly and surely as most women do, that a daughter was in my future. As a teenager, I kept a journal called "Dear Adelaide". It was a comprehensive account of my daily errors, a volume I one day hoped to hand to my daughter - who, at that time, would have been called Adelaide - with the words "learn from my mistakes before you go out and start making your own." I still have that journal, packed away in a box in the loft. And my daughter is no more a reality now than she was back then.

The mother/daughter bond is a slight variation on the father/son bond. Children tend to gravitate towards the parent whose gender is the same as their own as they get older. I'm trying not to stereotype here because I don't believe that people fit into boxes based on their genitalia, and I certainly encourage my sons to be whoever they are without my judgement. They're free to wear whatever they want and play with whatever they want. For example, Toddler Taylor enjoys playing with cars and trains. He doesn't have much grasp of the word "gentle" and nurturing is not his bag at all. But Baby Taylor is a very gentle soul. He likes to cuddle his teddy bears and stroke their fur, and he will often climb into my lap for a snuggle. He likes to play with toys that sing and play music. They are people. They are individuals. They are different from each other in so many ways. 

I love my sons and I know they love me. Neither of those facts are in question. But I do not want them to ever worship me. I do not want them to put me on a pedestal upon which I will never belong. I especially do not want them to compare any women they meet in the future to me. I'd like them to call or visit every once in a while when they're grown up and have left home. I'd like them to bring their girlfriends or boyfriends to meet me, but I don't want them to care what my opinions of their partners are. I don't expect them to want to go on lunch dates with me or meet me to go shopping. 

The thing is, all of that would still be true if I had a daughter, but at the same time I would hope that I could have had the same relationship with a daughter as I do with my own mom. She and I talk on the phone most nights. We meet up to go do things together. When she's sick, I buy her medicine and take it round to her house for her. She is my best friend and most trusted confidante. She provided me with the tools to become my own person and not be afraid of being exactly who and what I am. And, possibly most importantly, if I have the opportunity I will be there to hold her hand and tell her that I love her when she makes her final journey from this world. To me, all of these things are synonymous with what it means to be a daughter.

In March my gran passed away. My mom sat on one side of the bed holding one hand while I sat at the other side holding the other hand. Three generations of women who truly and honestly knew what it was to love each other. The next morning I realised that there might not be anyone to hold my hand when it's my turn. My sons might be far away. They may not feel as though they have enough of a connection with me to want to be there. I know it's not a guarantee that a daughter would want to be there either, but I feel like maybe she would if she felt the same way about me that I do about my mom.

I hope that my sons are close to their dad. I hope they go to football matches or movies with him. I hope they look up to him and try to emulate him in some ways. I hope they call in to see him when he's older and retired. And I hope that they have a normal, healthy relationship with me too. I hope, more than anything else, that just every so often they'll give me a cuddle.

Please do not mistake this longing for being simply ungrateful; I know only too well how blessed I am to have the beautiful, wonderful children that I do. To be a mother is a privilege and an experience for which I am endlessly thankful. There is only this; that sometimes I feel the lack of a daughter acutely. Sometimes it is hard to accept that what I always imagined for myself is something that I will never have. It does not negate my love for my sons in any way, but it would be insincere for me not to admit to this feeling that closes in on me just every now and again.

Surely that's okay?

Christmas > Sleep

Sleep. When you think about it, sleep is amazing, isn't it? I mean, you pass endless hours of your life just lying in a bed, completely unaware of everything around you, inanimate, dreaming... What a clever thing sleep is. But sleep is a bit like money; if you have it you're not fussed about it, and if you don't have it then you're always worrying about it.

Similarly, in relationships between co-parenting individuals, sleep can be used as currency. Gone are the days when you would barter with promises of sexual favours; now it's sleep. Sleep is your trump card, your Ace, your guarantee of getting whatever you want. All you have to say is "I'll let you sleep in tomorrow if you'll..." and it's yours. Clean the bathroom? Sure. Do all of the ironing and put it away? Absolutely. Hunt down and capture a pink fucking unicorn? Consider it done. I will do pretty much anything you want if you dangle the offer of sleep in front of me. Maybe I wouldn't kill anybody, but then again if they were morally reprehensible and completely irredeemable and you promised me a whole day in bed... Fuck it. Probably.

Sleep is completely unappreciated by the people who have nothing and no one regularly interrupting it. But for me, sleep is the unobtainable holy grail. I fantasise about sleep. When I dream, I dream about sleeping somewhere other than where I am actually sleeping. Desert island with warm, white sand and gently lapping waves? Hell, I'll sleep in a pit full of vipers on a bed of nails if you just promise me no one will wake me up for 8 hours. 

Children don't like sleep. They seem to think that they might miss something or that there are abundant other things they could be doing that are much better than sleeping. But they also tend to fall almost completely unconscious when they sleep. Ever tried to wake a sleeping child who doesn't want to be woken? Not easy and definitely NOT wise. And do you know when children really, REALLY do not like sleep? Christmas. Tonight I fully expect Toddler Taylor to be so emphatically excited that he will tear around the house singing snippets of various carols in a sort of festive, tuneless mash-up and then absolutely REFUSE to go to sleep. And it won't matter how many times I say "Santa won't come if you don't go to sleep" because he won't believe me because Santa ALWAYS comes. Kids are smart; they figure that one out really quickly.

Tomorrow morning he will wake unreasonably early, sprint up the stairs - possibly waking Baby Taylor, who has no fucking idea what's going on or why there is a tree IN THE HOUSE - and declare loudly and with boundless enthusiasm "IT'S CHRISTMAS!!!" before leaping onto the bed and possibly breaking several of my ribs. But here's the thing; I love sleep, but I love my babies ever so much more than sleep. And I love Christmas. And Christmas with my babies is the epitome of wonderful for me. Tomorrow morning it won't matter how little sleep I've had and how bone-achingly exhausted I am, I will still find the energy to sob quietly all the way through the process of watching Toddler Taylor tear open his presents while Baby Taylor eats the wrapping paper off his. It's a parental rite of passage to cry at Christmas. Because another Christmas means that your babies are another year older and so much different and more grown-up than the year before, and lack of restorative sleep makes the whole thing feel, like, TOTES EMOSH. Parents of the world, go ahead and weep with joy (and a little bit because you're so tired and it's so early); you deserve it. You're all bloody heroes to me.

Merry Christmas everyone. May Santa leave a sackful of sleeping dust under your trees to sprinkle liberally over your children on Christmas night.

The Week In Worries

I am a worrier. I worry about everything all the time. If I can't find anything to worry about then I worry myself about that instead. Do you ever do that thing where you've been cold-sweat obsessing about something all day, then you're just dropping off to sleep - having kinda forgotten about it - and you remember that you were worried about something earlier and then wrack your brains to remember what it was so you can continue worrying about it? I do. I do it all the fucking time. It's really no great mystery why I don't sleep well. And it's always stupid, small shit that doesn't even actually matter at all. Like I forgot to buy something that I don't really need or didn't wash up the stuff from dinner.

We have one of those Elf on the Shelf things this year. Do you know how fucking stressful they are? It was sent to us as a gift by my relatives in the US and Toddler Taylor loves it (which is all that matters and makes me incredibly grateful to my family for sending it as I don't imagine I would have thought to buy one myself). Every night the elf is supposed to fly back to the North Pole and report the day's events to Santa, then he will return to our home and find himself a new spot. Of course, that means it is my parental responsibility to find him a new place to sit in each day. So far he has perched in the Christmas tree, clung to the wreath in the hallway (where he had to have a safety rope because I found him on the floor when I came downstairs and can only imagine the horror that would have ensued if it had been Toddler Taylor who made the grim discovery rather than me), poked his head out of a box of Ready Brek, and today he is swinging, Miley style, from a glass bauble in the kitchen. He has also sat on a few shelves too, just to keep things traditional - and easy, if I'm being completely honest. But the point is that every night when the kids have gone to bed, I wander around the house, elf in hand, looking for a new spot for him. I worry that Toddler Taylor won't be able to find him. I worry that he will fall to his death from whatever lofty perch I have chosen. Mostly I worry that I will forget to move him at all. This has happened more than once and resulted in a sudden bolt-awake incident in the middle of the night, accompanied by frantic thoughts of, "The elf the elf oh my fucking god I didn't move the fucking elf!" So yeah. I worry about that cursed elf a lot.

I worry about Baby Taylor a ridiculous amount too. There's the fact that, at 14 months, he shows no interest in independently walking. I know that this is my fault because I have babied him because he is the last baby I will ever have (but that's a story for another day). I also worry about his proclivity for injuring himself. Because Baby Taylor may not be able to walk, but the kid is a fucking mountain goat when it comes to climbing. However, unlike a mountain goat, he often falls off the stuff that he has climbed and hurts himself. Yesterday he climbed up into the high chair and then onto the table. About half an hour ago he climbed onto this huge, soft cube he has that plays songs about shapes and, predictably, the thing tipped over and he fell off it. I can't even go to the bathroom anymore unless I take him with me because he WILL climb something, fall off it and probably give himself concussion. It's a nightmare.

I also worry about my house. My husband takes a philosophical stance on the issue of cleaning and tidying. "It will be better when the kids are older," he intones with a resigned sigh. I, on the other hand, regularly explode into hysteria over the state of our house: "If we don't fucking keep on top of cleaning the fucking house then it will be so fucking dirty by the time the kids are "older" that we will never actually be able to make it look clean again!" I hiss emphatically, windmilling my arms frantically in the general direction of the various detritus strewn about the place with gay abandon. For most of my adult life I have lived in the midst of other people's mess. First it was the boyfriend who never cleaned up after himself to such an extent that I gave up too. Then, after living in a few very cramped flats with no storage space and a three month suitcase-living stint in the US, I had to put up with my brother's negligent approach to basic cleanliness for six months. But in between there was this one flat I had with cavernous storage and plenty of living space and I kept that place immaculate. That flat stands as a monument to how I would live if I didn't have to deal with everyone else's shit being everywhere. At the present time, the ironing pile is so damned huge that I fear Baby Taylor may soon decide to climb it. I find myself panic stricken over the sheer volume of stuff there is to tidy away and clean sometimes. Like right at this moment my heart feels a little strangled by it all.

Money. Who doesn't worry about money, especially at this time of year? At the moment we are okay, but I know that soon we are going to need to send Toddler Taylor to playgroup for full days and I just don't know where that money is going to come from. I could work more, but that seems self-defeating because then I would need someone to look after Baby Taylor. So sometimes I look at the lives of my peers who have good jobs and are making good money and I wish that I had done more with my life. Of course, being a pragmatist, when I wasn't quite sure what I wanted to do with my life at 18 I decided to put university on the back burner and work instead. And if I hadn't done that then I probably wouldn't be who I am today. But just every now and again I feel like I could be so much more, like I had so much potential and I just threw it all away. I guess there's more than one worry here, but they're so intrinsically tied up with each other - and both have such a huge bearing on my self-worth - that it's impossible for me to mention one without thinking of the other. Maybe what I should really be worrying about is why either of these things actually bother me so much in the first place.

Here's something else I worry about: Am I not enjoying this as much as I should be? Am I spending too much time worrying about stuff and not enough time just being with my children? Is it normal to worry this much about mess and finances and milestones and fucking elves? Will I look back on this one day and realise that I worried so much about the things that didn't matter that I missed out on getting the most out of the things that do? But the thing that I keep hearing from the older generation is that this is just how it is. This is just motherhood and parenting and that I will find all of the joy that I lost out on to worry when I have grandchildren someday. To me that feels a little bleak, so instead of thinking about that I keep bringing myself back to an afternoon I had with Toddler Taylor a couple of months ago. We went up into the woods and balanced along the trunks of fallen trees and threw piles of leaves into the air and ran along the twisting little paths and listened for an owl hooting in the canopy above us and we had the best fucking time just being together. 

That's what I always dreamed of when I thought about having children. That's what makes me happier than anything else in the world ever, and I get so excited when I think about being able to do these things with both of my children next year.

And the best part? I wasn't worried about a thing.

Dear Husband

Dear Husband,

It’s hard to believe that it’s been almost six and a half years since we met. Sometimes I think about that and I’m not quite sure where the time has gone. I look back at the photographs of us from our first Christmas together and I can hardly believe that the people in those pictures are us. We look so young. We were so young. But I remember those days like they were yesterday, even though it is hard to place the people we are now in the life we had back then.

I remember how we were always walking, endlessly circling the streets around our town, deconstructing our lives and our feelings and the simple facts of our days. I think most of what we learned about each other in those early months was learned upon those walks. We liked to drive over to York and walk around there too, then we would stop by the cinema on the way home and watch a movie together.

I remember the night you cooked vegetable lasagne for me in my kitchen, how we lay on the kitchen floor together and I knew I loved you. I knew it in such a way that it wasn’t a feeling, but a fact. Irrevocable. Unchangeable. Solid and dependable. It’s funny how I didn’t know that you were what I was looking for before that night, how I’d thought that we would have something short and fun, but never imagined us in the place we find ourselves now. That night it felt like something I should have known all along.

I remember how sometimes, on our days off together, we would just lie in bed all day, then in the evening we would get up and go wander around the aisles in the supermarket trying to find something we both wanted for dinner. More often than not, we ended up getting take-out instead.

I remember the first home we bought, the endless search through flats and houses and how nothing ever felt quite right until we stood in a ripped out kitchen together and something finally fell into place. Our situation there wasn’t always great, but we had each other and that somehow made everything okay. We told ourselves over and over that it was only temporary, just a footing on the ladder that would lead us to the home we would stay in forever.

I remember handing you a tiny ginger kitten and watching a part of you that I’d never seen before come out. You were like a child on Christmas morning. You’d always told me that you hated cats, but that was the first time you’d ever really been so close to one and I watched you fall in love with him in seconds. Within a month of bringing that kitten and his brother home, you were making friends with every cat on the street and I knew that you were IT.

I remember the night you asked me to marry you, how I knew it was coming because you couldn’t sit still and your sentences were left half-finished. You were skittish and unpredictable, like a firework in an overturned milk bottle. Then I remember the crippling nerves of our wedding day and the giddy excitement of becoming your wife. I remember how everybody else disappeared as I promised my future to you. There were only 40 people in the room with us, but there could have been 4000 and I wouldn’t have cared right then. You anchored me to that moment with nothing but your hand holding mine.

I remember the moment the world turned upside down, and now I look back I can really see how scared we both were behind the excitement and the exhilaration of knowing that we were going to be parents. But you were right there when I needed you, and you made me anything I asked for on the rare occasions that I actually felt up to eating in the first few months. I remember one night all I wanted was a baked potato with butter, so you made one for me and you pulled such a sad face when I came back from the bathroom ten seconds after finishing it looking miserable and shaking my head.

I remember our second search for a home and the many disappointments we had to face along the way. I particularly remember that one house, the house we both loved, the house we could see ourselves living in before we even stepped through the door. There was so much space, so many rooms that went on forever, such a place to grow a family. I know we both felt like we couldn’t possibly belong somewhere like that. We ignored so many things about that house because it was The Dream. The hole in the top floor bedroom ceiling – a sure sign that something was amiss with the roof -; the weird bath; the fact that we would need to buy a new oven with next to no money; how close it was to the road; the lack of parking... But when it came down to it, we knew that enough about it wasn’t right that even when the vendors came back to us after rejecting our offers twice, we somehow knew we’d done the right thing in walking away. But I still think about that house sometimes when I feel like we’re all falling over each other here, and I know that you do too.

I remember us painting this house together, talking for hours about what our lives would be like here, trying to imagine what our baby boy would look like and gazing out over the overgrown jungle of a back garden while we pictured summer days playing football and splashing in a paddling pool with him. And I know that I would have been so much more scared during my first labour if you hadn’t been there. I remember telling you at one point that I didn’t want you to be around for the birth because I couldn’t bear the idea of you seeing me like that, but I know that I only got through it because you were there and when I sobbed that I couldn’t do it anymore, you held my hand and you told me that I could. You were so calm and you made me believe that I was strong and brave and could do anything.

I feel like so much of who we were has gotten lost over the last three and a half years. Or maybe not so much lost as buried, because now our world is so much bigger than just the two of us. But sometimes I forget that you still need me. You still need me to be on your side, to have your back and be the person that I always was for you. So I want you to know that I remember us. I remember the little things and the big things and the million tiny moments that have led us here, and I am grateful for you. I’m grateful that you know me well enough to understand that I’m a bit fucked up sometimes and that it’s not your fault. I can’t imagine feeling so right with anyone but you; you are everything I never knew I always wanted, and I don’t even care how cliché that sounds. I want you to know that I wouldn’t be who I am today without you and that I love you.

I just love you.