So, I’ve decided to become tidy.

OK, that’s a bit of a grand declaration, probably destined to fail.

I’m going to try to get more organised?

I’m going to try?

I’ve made the confession here before that I’m a housekeeping disaster.

I made it while I was pregnant and explained that I think good mothers probably fold the laundry instead of stuffing the drawers.

I do that now. Mostly.

Talitha’s room is the most organised one in the house due to this “good mothers do” mentality.

And let’s not go down with the feminist thing.

Yes, I call myself a feminist.

Yes, I know vacuuming isn’t gendered.

I’m the one with more time so I consider most of this responsibility mine.

Honestly, I have been on the path to rehabilitation, to enlightenment, if you will, and here’s where I am – completely unrecognisable to teenager me but not enough of an improvement on student me.

I’m probably, um, sixty per cent of the way to where I should be?

That may be a little generous some days.

Now that we live in a house, rather than have more space to give everything its place (even writing that phrase I heard my mother’s voice just then – it’s the middle of the night and a bit spooky), it’s kind of become this sprawling landscape for the mess to spread itself, no longer stifled by the confines of a bedroom.

Instead it’s all free to roam: clothes, books, shoes relocating themselves to exciting destinations.

I like to think of it as a house of surprises.

A hunt for the remote control reveals a month-long-sofa-eaten jumper and BOOM!

It feels like a lazy girl’s shopping spree.
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Supporting a breastfeeding group, I get an eyeful of newborn every Wednesday. It is lush. I love everything about a tiny baby: the way the curl up (though mine never did), their often closed eyes, their fragility. I am in constant wonder that this is where life begins. But I do not want one. Not now.

Of course, if I were take a test tomorrow and find it positive, I’m sure my feelings would change without prompt. Just covering myself in case that does happen and child number two is reading this years later. I really did want you. Mummy’s just working through some honest feelings out loud. Don’t you have something better to do than dig up blog posts about babies from the 2010s? Go back to exploring your teen angst on your touchscreen guitar.

It’s strange to think that just six months ago I was disappointed by a negative pregnancy test even though we weren’t trying to conceive. I was so up for getting on with baby number two back then and Talitha was only, what, nine months? In fact I found myself telepathically willing Mum2BabyInsomniac to have another baby because broody likes company. She is now pregnant (not that I’m claiming to have anything to do with that, obviously) and I’m looking at pregnant people and thinking: “Gosh, really? Are we going to do that again?”
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We’ve just come to the end of day nine of Talitha’s mystery illness. A sick baby on holiday – not exactly planned for. A paediatrician I spoke to over the phone thinks it’s a minor virus. Up until day three I thought she was teething. With not a swollen gum in sight and an unrelenting fever, it was pretty clear something else has been going on.

She seems to be getting better now but she’s gone hoarse, so we’ll be calling the doctor again tomorrow. It’s a cute sound – kind of like a baby pterodactyl. It’s absolutely heartbreaking to hear her cry though and she’s still crying a fair bit because she’s not herself. How do you get a baby to rest her throat? I mean, other than letting her continue playing with the coin found on the floor, letting her share your crisps and never ever even for nappy changes putting her down?
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