Those of you who read The Uphill – the parenting and family blog I write “in my spare time” (haha) – will already be familiar with my life updates. I do one every single month without fail, always on the same day of the month, and I’ve been writing these little round-ups of my family news, baby developments and personal triumphs/struggles since Angelica was born. So almost three years.
I absolutely treasure these updates – they’re an online diary, really, of all of my thoughts and experiences and I find them fascinating to look back on. Reading and remembering how I felt when I was in the depths of my pregnancy with Ted, worrying about gestational diabetes and vaginal-births-after-c-sections and all of the things that were promptly forgotten as soon as he was out and we were home; laughing over Angelica’s obsession with role-play, having a little cry over the mentions of my Dad and his sudden death. So I love my updates, but times are a-changing and Ted is now a toddling menace – Angelica is turning into a proper little girl, complete with minor tantrums and chat-back sass. No longer are there any long-winded monologues on the merits of breastfeeding lying down, or conversational-starters about weaning; the things that occupy my mind now are very different to the words that I needed to get down on the page a year or two years or three years ago.

I’m by no means saying that now both babies are out of the baby ph...