A Wild Life in Words

First Days….

It seems the last post I wrote on here was about Elsa turning four. And now, here we are. First day of school. Just enough time to mark the major milestones these days then…. Pretty much. Since Elsa turned four, the twins have turned one, and started crawling and cruising and shrieking and – tentatively…

Four Years

Elsa turned four this weekend… This birthday has taken me more by surprise than any other she has had. Perhaps because, since she turned three, there have been two other people in our lives to distract me from how much she is growing and changing. In fact, it is only when I look back at…

Fathers on Fathering

A unique perspective for the Mothers on Mothering column this month, from a father, in honour of Father’s Day. Richard is my husband and father to our three children – Elsa, Felix and Monty – he works in recruitment, and lives with me in the Cotswolds countryside, where he is never happier than tramping about…

Green Goddess

I hosted a dinner party for eight girls from my hypnobirthing class on Saturday night. One of our gang is moving to Scotland, and we wanted to send her off properly, and it felt like the right time for us all to take stock and celebrate how much we have achieved and how far we…

Christening the Boys

Two vintage white gowns, two twin boys, one big sister, seven wonderful godparents, five doting grandparents, siblings, friends, family, a surprisingly sunny afternoon, 15 bottles of prosecco, one poached salmon, three roast chickens, 15 meters of hessian bunting, and a church service to remember…. We christened the boys at the weekend. It was such a…

Safe and Close

Separation Anxiety and the High Needs Baby…. I wrote recently on Instagram about our struggles with separation anxiety and coping with a ‘high needs baby’. I was quite amazed by the responses from so many people who had experienced, or were still experiencing, similar issues, even if they didn’t know what they were dealing with at…

Dressing Boys

Beautiful threads for stylish little men… One of the things most bemoaned about having boys is the total lack of choice when it comes to clothes. When my two little boy twins turned up, it did cross my mind at one point that I didn’t have another little girl to indulge with beautiful skirts, floaty dresses…

Dark Thoughts

It’s Maternal Mental Health Week this week. A really important thing to keep drawing attention to. I didn’t think much about my mental health when I had my daughter, because, aside from the usual shock of new parenting, I was really, actually fine. Twins, however, has been a different thing entirely. Parenting twins has not…

The Sleep Diaries

Our journey through no sleep, bad sleep, terrible sleep, desperate sleep and beyond… Anyone that follows me on Instagram knows the trials we’ve been having with sleep, certainly since well before Christmas, but really since the twins were born. That’s almost seven months of no sleep. Before the twins were born I was reassured by…