The Pram In The Hall

 Automated woman: Hello, welcome to Wah Wah Insurance. We're sorry but all of our operators are busy right now. To help us manage your call, please choose from the following options. Please press 1 if your baby has kept you up for days. Press 2 if your baby has screamed excessively in a supermarket. Press 3 if your baby isn't as handsome as you hoped. Press 4 if your baby is continuosly being addressed by the wrong gender. Press 5 if your baby has urinated or defecated unreasonably over you. (Harriet presses 5) Please wait your call is important to us. (Compilation of songs plays, including Baby Love by The Supremes, Ice Ice Baby by Vanilla Ice and Baby Got Back by Sir Mix-A-Lot) Operator: Hello, your through to Wah Wah Insurance, how can I help you? Harriet: Hello, yes, I feel like my baby has urinated and defecated unreasonably over me. Operator : Let's see what we can do for you. Do you mind just giving us more details? Harriet : Yes, I was urinated on twice and pooed on...

  June 30 th 2022 Things have started to settle down here. Had a bit of a difficult time last month with That Thing spewing his guts up in the night. I’m sure he was ill, but it was nothing compared to what I went through. They put me on at all hours of the night. I didn’t know when my rest was coming. One moment I’ve just got off to sleep, the next I’m back on again; my head being thrown this way and that. Saying that, it’s been a relatively quiet year. I’ve got used to the rhythms of the week. These People are characters of habit. I mean That Man has been eating the same muesli every day since they brought me home. And That Woman, as regular as clockwork, each evening will ask, ‘Have you seen my lip balm?’ They’re not spotaneous people: they like a timetable, they enjoy routine, and that's what they have for me: three cycles on Saturdays – light, dark and white. I know where I am with These People. I guess what I’m saying is things could be worse. If I weighed bigger at birt...

  Firstly, I would like to thank you all for being here today on this happy occasion. Just over two years ago we founded our first business, Theivamanoharan & Son. Despite the teething problems, growing pains and sleepless nights that come with any start-up, we found the venture wholly enjoyable. Therefore, in December of last year, we decided to expand the business. To extend our company profile by adding additional stock to our property portfolio. It is our goal, our ambition, to have the name Theivamanoharan as recognisable as Adidas, Marks and Spencer and Disney . For this to happen, we must develop our brand, spread the word, so one day Theivamanoharan will become a household name – like Dettol. This new asset you see before you was nine months in the making. The initial idea was conceived in the upstairs bedroom of a Dunstable townhouse, from there it went to the genetic designers that laid out the blueprint, the DNA, for what you see before you today. We’re thrilled to...

 Day 1 We didn’t mind our last baby was two weeks late. My dad, Harriet’s father-in-law, had just passed and we needed time to process sadness before we could register joy. However, we really didn’t want this baby to be late. If our little boy was born early in the summer, it would give us the opportunity to be a family whilst the school holidays were still in full swing. Also, last time round was a complex situation; in any other context, you don’t want to be waiting weeks and weeks for a child to be born. Harriet’s baby shower had friends guess the name, due date and weight. Unsurprisingly, the latest someone put down was August 17 th , the due date. ( Note: If you are at a baby shower, always put down a date before the due date or- if you’re particularly close to the mum-to-be - the due date itself. Never put down a time that exceeds the expected time of arrival, the mum-to-be will kill you and the police won’t charge, accepting there were mitigating circumstances.) I wa...