During an episode of X-factor later that evening, we decided it was time to head into hospital. Cue a frantic drive from Kent for Granddad to look after older brother and an equally frantic drive through the streets of London by spectacularly well-prepared husband. I was slightly distracted by the ever intensifying contractions but not enough to miss the fact that husband enjoyed every minute of his ‘justified’ Stig impression. We did the hour long journey in 25 minutes…

We arrived at the very lovely Portland Hospital just after 11pm and the Beatle was born 7 and a half (long) hours later. A year ago today.

It’s been a beautiful year with a beautiful son – happy first birthday, precious son, I love you with all my heart.

Just before I left for hospital to have the youngest of my boys, I went into my first-born’s room and stroked his sleeping head. I silently promised him that no matter what the next few weeks and months might bring, nothing would change my utter devotion to him.

And on the first day in hospital, I pined. Despite the fact that I’d struggle to tell newborn pictures of them apart now, the little baby in my arms seemed foreign and unfamiliar. I wanted my baby, the one I’d spent 19 months nurturing. I took me by surprise that it wasn’t the 19 month old I was pining for, it was his newborn self. Seeing my new son made me realise what I’d lost and could never, ever, get back.

That first day was slightly hellish. I was exhausted, uncomfortable and in the grip of some very powerful hormones. The elation I felt after my first birth was conspicuously missing and I was consumed by feelings of guilt and a very real sense of loss. In the midst of all that, there was this tiny new being who desperately needed me. I suspect he was hoping there’d been a mistake and at any moment this slightly hysterical, constantly sobbing woman would be ushered from the room allowing his real mother to take over.

I couldn’t tell you when or how the tide turned but at some point in that first 24 hours, it all changed. I’d been going through the motions of feeding, nappy changing and putting him down to sleep, mostly while tears dripped off me onto him. And all the while, he’d been slowly and without warning wriggling his way into my heart.

The moment that I realised for the first time that it was all going to be alright was when he was being returned to me after a couple of hours in the nursery. I heard him crying all the way along the corridor and I knew he was crying for me. I couldn’t get to him fast enough. It was done, I was in love. Still am.

To be fair, I’m probably not going to be winning any ‘Employee of the Year’ awards – I started at my firm five months pregnant, went on maternity leave for a year (got to love British maternity legislation), returned to work four months pregnant and swanned off on maternity leave again three months later. My firm was forced to pay me a ‘return to work’ bonus despite the fact that I was already on maternity leave again, because to refuse to do so would have been discrimination on the basis of pregnancy (a big no-no in the UK).  Admittedly this seemed unfair even to me, causing me to worry about the bad karma I might be attracting.

I was all set to return after my second year of maternity leave and duly submitted a flexible working application. Having returned to work three days a week between babies, I was hoping to agree something similar this time around. My boss was having none of it. Every request I made was turned down with extensive reasons. As is the norm at any top ten London law firm, to go back full time would effectively mean not seeing my boys at all during the working week. I would leave before they were up in the mornings and return after they’d gone to bed. I realise that there are thousands of parents for whom this is unavoidable but I am lucky enough to have a choice, and it took me about four seconds to decide that resigning was the only option for me.

We managed to part company on relatively good terms which is surprising given I was immediately put on gardening leave (security would have been informed that I was not to enter the building unaccompanied, nice!) and we had to get through the unpleasant task of negotiating my termination payment. Negotiating with senior partners at a law firm is not the barrel of laughs you might expect it to be.

So for now, I be full time mum-of-two. Never thought I’d see the day…

I won’t lie, a big part of me is delighted. After nine months of pregnancy and ten months of breastfeeding, my body will be my own again. I will not miss feeding bras for even a moment. I will happily embrace guilt-free drinking and nurofen will, once again, be my friend. No food is off limits and my body will stop clinging to its fat stores to ensure we’ve got enough to go around.  And let’s not forget the tiny, surprisingly sharp, teeth…

But another part of me is sad. Very sad. I read somewhere that there is no closeness on earth like that between a mother and her baby, and we’re never closer to our babies than when we’re feeding them. I’m not even going to attempt to describe the phenomenal feeling of oneness, I could never do it justice, but for me breastfeeding is an oasis in the wall-to-wall chaos that heralds the arrival of a new bundle of joy. It’s a time when no one else exists, just me and my baby. And whilst the fact that he can speed around the room, keep himself entertained and interact meaningfully with us are all undeniable signs that he’s growing up, the end of our breastfeeding relationship is the milestone that seals the deal. The baby is gone. The toddler is beautiful, I’m every bit as in love with him, but the baby is gone. I’m not sure I’m ready to accept that yet. So for the moment, I am still breastfeeding – just not today.

I asked him about the crying incident and he said that he’d cried because he’d lost me. Lost me? Does he think that when I leave him at nursery, that he’s lost me. It’s gut-wrenching to imagine him embarking on a futile search of the nursery trying to find his lost Mommy. Just as gut-wrenching as it was peeling the clingy mess off me this morning and hearing the howling behind me as I marched stoically back to my car. I made the mistake of looking back and seeing the tear-flooded eyes filled with pain and desperation, his hands frantically shoved into his mouth in an attempt to find calm. Naked separation anxiety, for both of us. It’s a killer.

And all of this while I’m grappling with going back to work in less than a month.  Sucks really.

We left Cape Town on the day that the football world cup started which meant that the airport was wall-to-wall vuvuzelas, flags and marauding bouncy South Africans – beautiful to see on any other day, not especially helpful when trying to maintain the kids’ routines including bottles at the right times and naps in buggies. This was not helped by a lengthy stint at passport control where we made the unhappy discovery that the kids’ visas had expired making them, technically, overstayers. (Good going Mum and Dad – make criminals of the little ones before the age of three). Poor husband was left to convince the unimpressed passport controller that this was nothing but an oversight on our part as both boys are in the process of obtaining South African citizenship, while I simultaneously spooned unappetising sweet potato puree into baby and reassured toddler that this was a minor setback which would not prevent us from going ‘up, up, up in the sky’.  Result … we were losing before we even set foot on the plane.

Cue twelve hours of tantrums, wailing and general gnashing of teeth. The kids weren’t particularly well behaved either. I was seriously considering locking myself in the bathroom and denying any knowledge of the rest of the family when I heard those beautiful words, “Ladies and gentleman, we will shortly begin our descent into London Heathrow”. Ah, but the joy that was that 48 hour period was not over yet. For some reason, we thought it would be a clever plan to drive direct from the airport to our new abode. We were wrong. Apparently two over-tired, grumpy little people plus two utterly exhausted, exasperated parents plus one empty house with no food, beds, towels or kettle to improve the situation does not for a happy family make. The good news is we’re in and mostly unpacked now, broadband is installed, the weather is beautiful and Wimbledon is in full swing. We all miss home every day but this is where we are. For now.

When little pumpkin and I encountered our next difference of opinion, I sternly informed him that he was headed for the naughty corner. ‘OK’ he said sulkily so off he went. We had a couple of similar run-ins resulting in more corner time. However, I realised something was amiss when one evening at bedtime he was offered the options of either sitting quietly on the couch drinking his milk or going straight to bed. He responded with ‘naughty corner?’. Um, not actually one of the options on offer my love.

My suspicions were confirmed on shower night. My eldest son definitely mistakes hair washing for some kind of torture. Whilst I was struggling with a sobbing, slippery, naked toddler, I was slightly alarmed to hear him howl between sobs ‘I want to go to the naughty corner, I want to go to the naughty corner!!’ Not exactly a raging success then.

I guess I could use the threat of a shower to deter misbehaviour but then I’d only have myself to blame if I ended up with the grubbiest teenager this world has ever known.

Ps while I’ve been typing this, little one’s pet stuffed penguin has been escorted to the naughty corner and told to stay there until he’s ‘finished’. Wonder what Pengu did to deserve that…

Of course my husband’s initial reaction was to tell the school to get knotted. My son has only been attending for a nanosecond and is enrolled on a temporary basis. I was tempted to return the book with an attached note simply saying ‘um, no!’ but then fretted about the little pumpkin being ostracised on account of his unco-operative mother. My problem with the concept is that I resent being forced to hit up friends and family for money. I’m not a fan of being pestered for money and can’t bring myself to do it to others. In this instance it’s for a worthy cause so I’m shelving the rebellious streak and buying the book of tickets myself. At least this way I can feel sanctimonious and smug about my charitable donation.

This was all a frightening insight into my future. I’m guessing this is not the last time one of my little lovelies will return home with something I am ‘required’ to sell. If I am to stick to my guns about not annoying my loved ones, in future I may be forced to randomly approach strangers in the street for donations – otherwise this could get expensive.

Admittedly some of the problem is that I’m just not all that interested at the moment – I am far more enamoured with my babies than I am with the finer points of legal argument. And whilst I amuse myself immensely by imagining what my colleagues would say if they could see me in full swing at a baby Gymboree session, that’s about as much head time as work has had whilst I’ve been on maternity leave.

I am more than slightly concerned that I’m going to be asked a taxing technical question at some important client meeting only to discover that all I can remember are the words for ‘the wheels on the bus go round and round’. And I’ve been warned by other returnees that when colleagues ask after the little ones, they’re looking for the short answer, preferably the one that doesn’t include a trawl through all the photos on my phone or a blow-by-blow description of routines, feeds and nappy contents.

So between my porridge brain and my inability to make small talk without somehow steering the conversation back to my precious puddings, even money says I don’t last a week.

He is a talented mimic. Yay us that he says ‘please’, ‘thank you’ and ‘sorry’ regularly and often even at appropriate times. Not so yay us that a number of unmentionables have been repeated. I’ve recently enrolled him at the local nursery school (which happens to be run by a church) for a couple of mornings a week. All is going swimmingly – he loves it, they love him – but I live in fear of some of his more colourful vocabulary being used at drop off or pick up. I’m guessing his current favourite expression of frustration would not be appreciated.”Oh God!” my two-year old will announce. Stunned silence and aghast faces from Teacher and other (presumably non-blaspheming) mommies will follow while I cast around desperately trying to work out how to pin this on my hubby.

More terrifying is the fact that he has been known to repeat the F word – I am no potty mouth and I very seldom swear in front of him, but when I forget myself and that word slips out, you can be sure my son will hold onto it for days. My current tactic is to immediately start chanting “truck, truck, Mommy said truck” but a friend correctly pointed out that this will fool no-one when he says “oh for truck’s sake!” This exact phrase was used by a good friend’s toddler on the way into nursery school recently – embarrassing at a secular nursery school but surely grounds for expulsion at mine. Poor pudding will have his stationery ice cream container under one arm, random bits of art under another and a confused expression on his face while Teacher gently suggests that he might be more comfortable elsewhere.

Heavens knows what he says while I’m not there but hey, ignorance is bliss.