On having two pairs of hands.

My life has been changed.  Transformed.  Made do-able again.

I have an extra pair of hands.  Fortunately they aren't attached to me, because that would look odd, and make buying clothes that fit even harder than it currently is. (I realise I'm three weeks more pregnant than I ever got with the girls, but honestly I can't be that big, can I?  I'm told, after all, that I'm measuring small.  So why am I constantly flashing either belly or lower back?)

But anyway, my extra pair of hands are attached to Carol, and Carol is my new favourite person in the world. 

She is coming three days a week, from 8 until 6.  We are only on day three, but oh! it's wonderful.  Suddenly you realise that a load of washing doesn't take all day, because suddenly when a war of attrition breaks out over a scooter while you're trying to hang the laundry up, somebody else can wrench them apart, so you don't find yourself soothing injured pride and sore heads, and forgetting what you were doing and then coming in once they're all in bed to find partially dried, irredeemably crumpled clothes on the floor where you dropped them in your haste. 

Suddenly, you can drink a whole cup of (raspberry leaf) tea before it goes cold.

Suddenly you can take L out for a walk while S and A nap and come back to find that the supper is on, the ironing done, and the girls have woken up and are having a story read to them.

Suddenly coping with four children feels like it might be possible.