Hartley: Fifteen Months

Hello Tiny Boo!

You’ve reached your fifteenth month of life and I do so wish you’d stay still for just a moment so that I can get my head round what and who you are. Life is like that generally for us, though, and I am coming to terms with the fact that I may never again have the presence of mind to collect these moments that mount, ebb and completely dissolve into the essential nutrients that help to fuel each and every day with you.

I would love nothing more than to sit down for a few hours and regularly take stock of all the ways in which you, me and your father continue to grow and change – as individuals and as a family - but the fact of the matter is, whenever I get a bit of time to myself now I am faced with three conflicting options: sleep/relax, clean/organise or read/write. That sounds more like six options, doesn’t it? But they seem less daunting when I pair them up like that, so let’s say three. And when you take into account the amount of dishes and splattered/crumbing foodstuff and toys and dirty nappies of which a day consists, there’s little doubt as to which option mummy is going to chose.

But these letters are so important to me because I don’t want to lose you, and sometimes it feels as though I’m losing you on a daily basis. You leave me breathless with the volume and scale of your development, and even though I can still remember those early days when you sometimes looked to me like a stern, miniature farmer squinting across the vastness of his wheat fields with an equal mixture of weariness and resolve, those memories are always in a state of being dismantled by the startling immediacy of today. I want to remember you just as you are, because even though I know I will love you at every stage of your growth, I know that I will miss the baby you are right at this very moment with all my heart. I also want to be able to share these aspects of you with you when you’re old enough to want to hear about them from me.



This month we were meant to be moving into a two-bedroom flat in the house you’d always known, in London. We were all set to go, and then illness struck for what seemed like the hundredth time - first me and then you and then your father - and life ground to a bit of a halt. It was during that halt that your auntie Kelly called and planted the seed of a solution that we’d heard before but never really listened to. One day you’ll learn that there are plans and ideals that exist in the imagination, and these rarely ever correspond to the organic experience of living. You need more imagination to overcome these invisible patterns of thought, which, come to think of it, has a name: ‘thinking outside the box.’

It wasn’t until I’d processed what auntie Kelly was proposing - not London, but a big house, more varied and accessible amenities, family and the chance at discovering a community and a support network for us all – that I realised how amiss we were in our ideals for what we’d always considered the perfect life. London was fine for two people with a predictable schedule and a certain number of guaranteed hours of free time per week – it was not fine for a new family that was struggling hourly to find its feet, and that needed a simple, easy foundation from which to begin and end each day. For over fourteen months, we’d been wrestling to fit ourselves inside an outdated mold of what we thought life should be like without ever stopping to consider what life was actually like. Once you know what your life is actually like, Hartley, the things you need to do in order to help that life along become apparent quite quickly.



So we put this idea into motion and, within three weeks, a conversation became a concrete plan and you, me and your father were moving to a town just outside of London, called Hitchin (which, incidentally, is where your father and I were married). We now live in a great big house with three bedrooms, three living rooms and a massive long garden for you to play in. More importantly, we live very close to your aunties, uncles, cousins and grandma, all of whom have helped us to settle in and have taken it in turn to bring you into the fold, giving you experiences that no two individuals, however much they love you, could have given you on their own.

While your father and I are enmeshed in the drama of acquiring and assembling the elements of a home, you’ve had to come to grips with learning an unfamiliar environment and the bare bones of a new routine on top of the learning you already do as a baby. This is probably why you’ve been a bit anxious lately, and why, up until a few days ago, you insisted on being carried everywhere, to the extent that if your feet touched the floor for even a few seconds you would scream and cry and head-butt the wall so that I would have to pick you straight back up again. You hadn’t yet committed the layout of the house to memory, much less established where I was likely to be if we weren’t in the same room, and so we suffered a short regression where I think both of us wished you could still fit into your front-facing carrier.



It is difficult to quantify the extent to which these circumstances have come to bear on all the new things you’ve been up to, but I think it’s safe to say that the different and bigger environment has launched you into areas of verbal and physical development heretofore unknown to us all. You don’t just mimic sounds anymore - you understand that words and action have meaning and consequence, and you’ve mastered these tools to the best of your abilities in order to communicate your needs.

Before, if you were full and wanted to get out of your high chair, you would chuck your food on the floor and cry. Now you fling your arms open and declare “Ah duh!” which means “All done!” - which means I’d better get you out of that chair quickly before you lose all faith in the notion that you’ve been understood and get really pissed off. You’ve also sussed somehow that shaking your head means ‘no’ and so if I ask “Do you want nana?” before you’re feeling hungry, you will say “Na?” and shake your head emphatically at me. Sometimes you will even pair this with “Ah duh!” to make your meaning extra clear.

You don’t really let me feed you anymore, and insist on using a fork or spoon in order to put what’s before you in your mouth, with varied success. You’re very good at yogurt, for instance, and not so good with grape halves, which you like to spear with a fork or scoop up with a large, flat spoon, though you will eventually resort to fingers if you’re hungrier than you are interested in studying for your Utensils 101 exam. However self-sufficient you’ve become at meal time, you still believe that there is no greater crime than the post-dinner face and hand wipe, and struggle against these as though undergoing the worst torture imaginable. It’s just a little moisture, darling, it wouldn’t kill you to sit through it.




Your walking has progressed to the extent that you are largely on your feet now, and about half the time you will resort to walking in that wide, shuffling way of yours in order to get from Point A to Point B. Point B, by the way, mainly consists of the cable box, which you turn off shortly after you shoot me a meaningful look and say “Na?” We must try very hard not to laugh at your antics, lest you stop taking us seriously, though you’ve perfected the art of comedy now, and with a well-timed expression could just about get away with putting ham slices on your father’s best comic books.

Your aptitude for demonstrating love and affection is boundless, and if you’re not coming at me with an enthusiastic, open-mouthed baby smile that gets closer and closer until it – “hum” – licks the tip of my nose, or puckering your lips into a fish mouth and releasing them with a tiny smack on my cheek (your auntie Cher taught you this), you’re squeezing my neck in a forceful hug and rub-patting my shoulder to let me know you’re glad I’m here with you.

I am ever so glad that you’re here with me too, little Boo. I have a very good feeling about this new beginning, and I hope that even as we’re busy throwing ourselves into things as we are currently – me, rushing to finish this off; you, screeching with laughter in the living room while daddy swings you around and sings along to his new Roxy Music album – we’ll find time now and again to catch our breath and just take in the vast landscape of our wondrous life, which you’ve shaped and inspired so much more than you can know.



Happy fifteenth month, Walkaconda. I love you extremely very much.

Hartley: Fourteen Months

Hello little love,

This month you were sick and then I was sick and then your father was sick, which made me sick all over again, and so I passed it back to you and then we collectively decided to end it all. Let me explain:

We've been slogging it out in a dirty big city for all the wrong reasons, or reasons that no longer make sense in the context of this family. Do you know how many times over the past thirty days we've stolen into town on the underground to push your buggy through millions of tourists so that mummy can buy a new jumper that will probably end up encrusted with apple puree and then tossed into the bottom of the wardrobe where it will remain until we move out, for example? Go on, have a guess.

The part of our brain that was telling us that we could not move away from London because London is where the exceptional museums and photography galleries and music venues and restaurants live also failed to inform us that, actually, we don't often make use of these opportunities anymore. We're too busy trying to hold our heads up at eight o'clock once you've fallen asleep so that anybody who happens to glance in on us from outside will think we are still alive in here.

And on a particularly difficult evening, after I'd been sending distress signals out over the netwaves (ie - whinging on Facebook), your aunty Kelly called to say that she wanted to take you for the day sometime in the next week to give us a chance to recuperate. Although this didn't happen in the end (our mutant illness can leap over entire townships, it's that powerful), it took her less than an hour to convince me that it might be best for all of us if we moved out of London and closer to family. It took me less than a second to convince your father of that idea the following day, once he'd taken his antibiotic and managed to choke down some toast.

So that is what we are going to do. We cancelled the overpriced 2-bedroom flat we'd found for the end of the month and instead began looking for a house in a village situated just outside London, a half hour away by train. After five days of searching we found a house so magnificent, so far beyond our wildest dreams, that the skin on my arm is virtually blue from the pinching, and all I do now is plan out exactly how I will safely navigate us through the next few weeks so that we can enjoy at least one day in that heavenly place, where we will live like kings with no furniture. Hopefully we will live for more than a day though, and with a mattress.

Apart from the extra space (we have three of nearly everything, including three fireplaces! Who needs three fireplaces? Who cares! We have three of them!), I just know that this decision is going to vastly improve the quality of life for all of us, and especially you. The town is pretty, quiet and slow-paced, and you will be surrounded by even more people that love you, that love all of us. We no longer need to visit church halls and community centres where a hundred children trample one another to claim a few filthy toys, or travel long distances on public transport so that you can catch a tummy bug in someone else's playroom. You'll have a playroom of your own soon. Heck, we'll all have our own playroom, and our own bedroom even, if your father doesn't sort out his snoring.

You won't remember your time in London if we fall in love with our new surroundings and forget to return, but we will have so many photos, so many stories to tell you, and your mummy still remembers what she was wearing on her fifth birthday, so you can bet she'll fill you in on every last detail of this remarkable year and two months you’ve spent here with us.

While it’s fresh though, let me fill you in on your fourteenth month, which you celebrated by being an even lovelier baby than you were last month. You already know your own mind, and you are constantly asserting yourself in new and bigger ways. Now when you are about to do something you know you shouldn't, you give me a meaningful look, wag your finger at me and say NA! before dipping your head down to bite my nipple. There are few contrabands you enjoy more than a nipple bite. I'm just grateful you give me fair warning now before you indulge.

If we don’t give you what you want (usually for lack of understanding), or if the world doesn’t work in the way that you expect or hope, you get a pained expression, hold your breath and go all red and shaky, which sometimes culminates in a little head-to-floor action, but mostly it results in me trying not to smile, because I want you to know that I take you very seriously.


You've developed an acute sense of empathy, and you remember to feed me and your father an equal amount of blanket lint which you painstakingly harvest from one of our throws for this purpose. One day you were drinking milk when suddenly you sat up, pinched my nipple and held your thumb and forefinger to my lips in an act of generosity that you later repeated with your father. You've also pinched invisible food off your tongue in order to retroactively share your good fortune with us. I find this more endearing than disturbing, though I think your father might lean the other way.

You've appropriated the word 'nana' (once indicative of your desire for bananas) to express hunger, so that if your father is looking after you on Saturday morning while I try to sleep a bit longer, he knows exactly when you'd like your breakfast. You're still using 'deedee' as your primary signifier, though you like to point to various objects around the house to hear me call them by name so that you can repeat an approximation of what you’ve heard. So 'Timmy' becomes 'Tee' and 'Hello' becomes 'Ah Oh', the latter of which you use often and in the right context too. You know what a phone is for, and you love to place objects (sometimes a phone, sometimes not) next to your ear to see if anyone is on the other end. You have even lifted your hand to your head and enquired 'Ah Oh?' of your open palm, which is pretty cute, I have to say.

I think too that you must love me, and not only in the way that a person dependent on someone for food loves that someone. Once we were at the duck pond and you were sat next to your two closest baby friends, the three of you in highchairs all in a row, when suddenly you leaned your torso towards me and I leaned towards you and put my arms around you, expecting for you to resist the brief imprisonment of my affection, except you put your little arms as far around me as they would go and lay your head against my shoulder, and we stayed like that for a little while. It was lovely, and I think you were trying to tell me that you were happy.

In terms of surprises, you had two in store for us this month - one good and one terrifying. Let's get the scary one out of the way so that we can end this letter on a good note, yes?

A few evenings ago, you woke up soon after we'd put you in your cot, and as it was your father's turn to look in on you (let's be honest - between the hours of seven and ten, it's always your father's turn), I sent him in to see if he could soothe you back to sleep. Instead, he began calling for me in a voice I'd never heard before, and in a way that made my legs turn to rubber.

We met at the door to the bedroom, where you lay in your father's arms, your face covered in blood.

It took me a millisecond to work out that you had a nosebleed, and thank goodness I had chronic nosebleeds as a child or we might have called an ambulance. We did call the NHS direct line just to see if the bleed was linked to something more serious, but sometimes a nosebleed is just a nosebleed. And I will never say 'just' in relation to blood ever again, when it comes to you, because I'm still trying to scrape my blood pressure off the ceiling where it stuck when I heard your father call for me like that and I thought something unthinkable had happened to you. I’d really like to minimise those kinds of surprises, if at all possible.

The nice surprise took place last week, when I watched you let go of the armchair and take two small steps towards the coffee table, which you touched like it was 'home free' in a game of hide-and-seek. You've taken thirty such unaided, forward-moving steps since that day, in various configurations and for various reasons, and each time you do, I am as proud as I was the very first time I saw you walk. This event, this walking business, was surprising not only because you pulled it out of seemingly nowhere, but because of how natural it looked on you. Something you've never done before, and you already look like you've been doing it your whole life, which has amounted to fourteen wonderful months, to the day.

I'm sorry these letters don't hang together better, Anaconda. Your mummy still exists in a perpetual fog, though hopefully that will change soon, now that we've finally come to our senses and are moving somewhere with a proper support system in place. It's also the place your father and I were married. We didn't know then that one day in the near-future we'd be returning to that small, cobblestoned village with a tiny boo (you!) in tow.

Happy fourteenth month, darling. I love you more than I know how to say.

C'est la vie en rose

Hartley’s fever broke at around two this morning and Bruce and I did a sleepy high-five in the dark before settling back into a fitful sleep. At about four, Hartley woke again, this time in tears. His little head began another slow burn, and by eight o’clock, his fever was back in full force. We called the NHS help line, and the person on the other end of the phone said some vague things about Swine Flu before referring us to an emergency clinic in Crouch End.

We bundled up our little boo and rushed him down there, only to find that the doctor seemed relatively unconcerned, even after he misunderstood that his fever had only come on in the last few days and not weeks as he’d imagined. We’ve had a trip to Paris planned for ages, and as it’s coming up tomorrow, we were certain we’d have to cancel. But the doctor wrote us up a prescription for antibiotics just in case we needed a Plan B, and told us to have a nice time.

So the rest of the day has passed in a flurry of activity - not only in preparing to leave for Paris, but in getting my application together for my leave to remain, as my visa runs out soon and we have to pop it in the mail the day after we get back. In addition to proof of having passed my Life in the UK test* and upward of eight hundred pounds, we also need to provide several documents demonstrating that we’ve been cohabitating for the last two years. One would think a marriage certificate would suffice, but one would be sorely misguided in that thinking.

If you’re well acquainted with the pair of us in real life, you will know what our organisational skills are like. They are like someone carefully filed every single letter, bill, receipt or notification in a well-ordered cabinet, in a well-ordered study, and then lobbed a Moltov cockatil into the midst of all that order. And then rubbed their hands together and said, Okay, now where did I put that Council Tax bill from 2006? I tell you, trying to gather the supporting documentation whilst force-feeding our screaming, choking infant his thrice-daily antibiotics has been fun. Great fun.

But although we are closer to fleeing the country in distress than setting out on a great adventure at this point, I have high hopes that tomorrow Hartley’s fever will have disappeared, and that we’ll be able to pull off this packing/leaving the house stint within the first few hours of waking. Or at least I’m folding dresses, t-shirts and baby blankets like that’s what I think. Going through the motions of belief is half the battle.

If anyone reading has ever done Paris on a budget and with an infant, your ideas on some baby-friendly sights and activities would be greatly appreciated. We haven’t exactly had time to do our research.

A tout a l’heur!


*I think I could probably wring a whole new post out of that experience, and will probably try at some point this month.