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The reality of maternal mortality: a father's perspective

… - would fall asleep on his bed, him in my arms.

Every time I took him to a party or to a friends house there would be trouble at night. He couldn't express it to start with, but he was angry that other children had a mum; what had he done wrong that meant he couldn't.

My own reaction over time was not much better. Consumed by anger, isolation and despair, I sunk into depression. I was …

Hot off the press

… it's true.

Last night I went out for an extremely nice dinner with friends, stopping at their house for glass of champagne.

'Look children, it's Ben's book,' Sally said.

'Wow. You're famous,' was her son's response, before climbing over the fence to play in the neighbour's garden.

It'd be easy to enjoy the 'fame' but that's not why I wrote Friday's Child.

I emailed some friends …

No crawling

… the man from the big company came and looked at my floorboards yesterday - the ones outside the house that I replaced last week - and confirmed woodworm. 'The quickest survey I've ever done,' he told me. He did examine the rest of the floorboards, upstairs and downstairs, and has prescribed 'fogging' under the ground floor. The rest of the house has a clean bill of health, fortunately.

His …

Fresh inspiration

Nearly six years ago, Jessica and I bought our first house. It was a big project, and we knew it would be a long term one. We did a lot of refurbishment and decorating together for a couple of years, but it all came to a halt in 2004.

Since then I have done very little myself, rarely finding the time or the inspiration, but two weeks ago I decided …

Get out, it's my castle

… proper go with the Henry hoover. Again on close inspection I realised that my previous unwelcome house guests had made a come back. Perhaps they never left, or just moved room, but the rug is riddled and bare in patches.

Now it's well hoovered and sprayed, back and front, with environmentally friendly insecticide (ha, Cypermethrin is not so friendly for crawling and flying insects) and I …

No news would have been good news

… up smoking (sorry, Harry) but am so far succeeding in my second - to tidy, sort and organise the house better. I also have a third: to step up the campaign to raise awareness of childbed fever. 2008 was always going to be a big year with the launch of my book, Friday's Child, in June but I want to make more noise and more of a difference than just that.

Thanks to a very kind person who has …

Hair today

… supermarket has been suitably raided for the week, calm is (temporarily) restored to the Palmer house.

When I watch Harry on the sitting room floor, painstakingly drawing individual leaves on a tree, I am proud. When I watch Emily putting together an underwater scene jigsaw, with the six hair clips, two bunches, twelve hair bands, necklace and two bracelets that she made me put on her this …

I like Mondays

… Sit down. Eat up. Stop fighting. Put that down. Listen to me. Stop chasing each other in the house. Clear up some of these toys. Stop whining. Stop banging toys. Go outside and play. Don't argue with each other. Play nicely. LISTEN TO ME."

I love my children and I love being a parent, but sometimes I hate parenting.

The weekend is not yet half way through and already I am longing for …

Early warning kiss

… sticky noses into the dogs'. That's my Summer Holiday treat and I look forward to it, but the house has been eerily quiet.

Even though I've meant to work solidly on my Project 'X', the silence is more distracting than the sound of pencil on colouring book, lego brick on brick or, "Daddy, I'm bored, what can I do?" and I've spent as much time reading other blogs, realising that I should …