A Love Affair

I have to share a guilty secret with you all... I have a new man in my life. We've only been seeing each other for a few months but it already feels like we'll be together for a very long time. A friend introduced us, she insisted I meet him, and I'm glad she did because it was love at first sight. He's sophisticated and stylish, romantic and timeless, and he's Spanish! He makes me feel like a grown-up. It's a pure and uncomplicated relationship; he gives me pretty things and I hand over my husband's hard-earned money, everybody wins (except maybe my husband...). I don't feel like I'm cheating; my husband knows exactly what's going on, but I do spare him the full details at times.

I wanted to take things slowly at first but I very quickly became addicted. We see each other almost weekly, and even when I come away empty handed I still feel like he's made my day a little brighter. I pop in whenever I'm in Central, just to see what he's been up to. Sometimes we only see each other briefly, just a passing glance, but I always go out of my way to see him. Last week he revealed his plans for the summer and I went weak at the knees - I hope I can share just a little bit of that with him. A few of my friends are also having affairs with him, but I don't mind, there's more than enough of him to go around.

I spent a lot of time with him when we were in Manila, it was almost a daily ritual for us there while my husband was out of town; a bit of a reprieve from the madness of looking after two kids. My son has met him a few times, although J isn't so easily won over by his displays of pretty, shiny things. We actually ran into him when we were in Macau recently. It was the first time my husband had met him face-to-face, but it seemed so right that he was there on our special weekend. It was a little awkward at first, and then my husband realised that there were some nice things in it for him too, and we all walked away quite happy with the arrangement. Who is this man who has so captured my heart, I hear you ask? His name is Massimo Dutti, perhaps you've heard of him?

It's hard to find someone who's genuine here in Hong Kong, someone who really understands what I want and offers me longevity and quality; most of them are all glitz and glamour on the outside but once you get them home they turn out to be fake, or worse, they fall apart on you; who needs that? At my age I don't have time to muck around. While I'm still loyal to my good friends Hennes and Mauritz (aka H&M), and will remain so, I've lately been disappointed by that temptress known as Zara, and I fear that our relationship has soured beyond repair (at least until the autumn collection is in). H&M are playful and light, and offer me a little bit of fun, for trips to the playground or impromptu wrestling matches on the carpet. But Massimo is what I want when I'm out on my own, or on a date with my husband, when there's no chance I'm going to end up wearing peach yoghurt or mushy peas. I have no idea how you'd get blueberry stains out of silk, and I never want to know.

Every mum goes through a bit of an image crisis at some point, whether they put on 2 kilos or 20 when they have babies, and we all need to feel beautiful sometimes. Massimo does that for me, and so much more. When I see him he always whispers seductively to me, "darling, you look beautiful today! But how about something in a nautical stripe with a bit of tszuj around the shoulder? Or perhaps a cherry red mini with a belted waist to show off those killer calves of yours? Go on, you know you want to!" Don't even get me started on what he can do with floral chiffon! There's no other word to describe what we share - it's love, plain and simple.

Admittedly all this passion comes at a price, and there are days when I really just want to sit on the sofa in a soft cotton t-shirt and my lulu lemon's, but it's nice to know that Massimo will be there waiting, in the wardrobe and at the mall whenever I need a treat. Don't we all deserve a bit of glamour every now and then?

Things that go Bump in the Night

Our little guy doesn't crawl yet. From about 6 months of age he's much preferred to walk holding on to someone's hands. Despite reading a lot of negative reports about baby walkers we had to get one to save our backs and he loves it. We keep it downstairs and there's nowhere that he can trip or fall out of it so we feel confident that he's quite safe. He has full scope to chase the dog from one side of the living room to the other with a mischievous glint in his eye, and he lets us know he wants to go out by heading straight for the door. We were worried a few weeks ago that he wasn't crawling so we kept him out of the walker for a week. It didn't make any difference; he was just very cranky!

In the last week or so he's finally started showing signs that he might be crawling soon, and he is much more mobile. He's pulling himself up on furniture, and as soon as he's standing he gets a great big grin on his face, as if he's so very proud of himself. His latest manoeuvre is to transition from sitting to all fours by leaning forward (usually to grab something he's not supposed to) quickly followed by collapsing onto his belly. It's painful, but wickedly amusing, to watch him get so close to a crawl only to fail at the last hurdle. We're starting to realise how unsafe our house actually is as J lunges for cords and pulls things off shelves. We made an emergency purchase of stair gates, door closers, cord shorteners and corner cushions on Kiddicare.com this week so hopefully this time next week the place will be a little more baby-proof.

Our biggest worry, safety-wise, was the cot and we lowered it as soon as we realised J could use the bars to pull himself to standing. We've been a bit lazy to this point and have not been in the habit of raising the side gate. So late last night when we heard a loud crash coming from J's room we both instantly thought he'd fallen out of the cot and ran in there quicker than you can say "slack parents!" J was safely curled up asleep; all he'd done was kick the side of the cot, but my heart was palpitating for about an hour afterwards. The irony is, last night was the first night this week that J was feeling better and slept well...

I know as he gets older and able to get into more mischief we'll have to think of new ways to keep the house safe, but for now we're going to start by raising the side of the bed, every single night.

Thanks again for all the support this week, especially to the friends who offered to take my calls in the middle of the night; it's very much appreciated. We all got sick in the end and we're desperately hoping that we can harden up and avoid catching every little bug J brings home.  See you next week x