"What was your favourite bit about Christmas when you were a kid?" they ask me every day. "First tell me yours." I always reply. And they roam through the rituals, turning them over one by one - the hot chocolate when they write their Santa letters, putting the star on the tree, staying over in Grandad's house on ...
As I surveyed the entire contents of my shopping bag yesterday - two packets of similar-but-not-the-same crackers and nothing else at all - it struck me that this scene, and the lead-up to it, quite aptly summed up my parenting. It started when we realised we were out of cream crackers, and I had to go to ...
A day off while the kids are in school? I couldn't remember the last time I'd done it. As for a whole week? Never. And I'm guessing most parents are the same - it feels like a waste to take a week off when the kids are in school or in crèche. Annual leave is precious, ...
At 9.34pm on Monday night, I pressed send on book 2, and off it went into the ether. Obviously nobody was at the other end of the email at 9.34pm on Monday night, and it wasn't due in until Tuesday but I needed to stop editing and let it go. Then I sat back to watch ...
It was five o'clock Thursday, rush hour in Dublin city centre. One of those beautiful sunny Autumn evenings we get in early October every year - the Indian summer my kids didn't believe existed. I was among throngs of post-work walkers - marchers really, marching towards buses and trains and shops and pubs. Women in trainers, ...
Oh September, I had such plans for you. A fresher start and a newer year than January. A turning of leaf. A chance to get back to work-proper after a summer of juggling kids and deadlines; the smell of new shoes and new pencil cases promising routine and productivity and starting over. Except of course, with ...
An entire decade has passed since you rushed into the world, two and a half weeks before your due date. I hadn't finished work yet, and perhaps it was your way of setting the scene; letting me know that nothing would ever be properly planned again. And indeed, of all the things you've taught me, that's one ...
"How was your summer and how does she like the new teacher and how is he settling back in?" The voices change but the questions are the same. "They're tired this week, I'm tired this week, how is it only Monday?" Stopping at the corner for a conversation worth an hour - condensed into ten minutes. Machine gun chat, ...
"It's not fair, everyone in the class got lovely new books and I got one with scribbles all over it." "It's not fair, we all got moved around and we were allowed to be with our friends, but I was too shy to ask." "It's not fair I have to colour this balloon in brown but the brown ...
"The summer holidays are too long" "I took parental leave for August and I'm dreading going back to work" "The kids are up the walls and could do with some structure now in September" "I hate having to get her up to bring her to the childminder every morning when there's no school" "He's too old for the crèche now ...