Besides, I didn’t have a lifestyle before Steven came along. Now I did, but it didn’t involve much lipstick. My new lifestyle was one of unwashed hair and pyjamas at two in the afternoon. But I loved it. I loved every minute of it, even the hard days when he seemed grumpy and I couldn’t understand what he wanted. Even on the days I was so tired I couldn’t see straight by lunchtime. I held him ninety percent of the time in those first weeks, even when he was sleeping. Shooting myself in the foot completely when, later on, he wouldn’t go to sleep by himself. But it made me happy.

Poor little Maria didn’t get the same treatment when she was a newborn. I was cured of my OCD baby-holding by then, and was even capable of going to the toilet without taking her with me, an unthinkable lapse in Steven’s baby days. Thinking back now, I’m sad to realise that some of the details have faded in my memory over the years. Back then, I was so sure I’d remember every second forever. But then you wake up one day and realise you can’t remember the name of your first real boyfriend, but you do know all the words to every song Barney ever sang. Stuff like that could depress a girl.

What does stick in my mind about those first months is yoghurt. Lots and lots of yoghurt. It was the only thing I could eat. I couldn’t face the thought of any other food. Suppertime was especially hard, with its awful smells of frying onions and grilled chicken. It was almost as bad as morning sickness, though caused by something entirely different – adrenalin and nerves. I became wonderfully skinny, but I was way too busy, tired and consumed by motherly devotion to notice or care. (The skinny thing didn’t last, by the way, which is not really surprising. The phase passed only too quickly and I was soon back to my normal macaroni-cheese-scoffing, chunky self.)

There is no end to the ways in which parents can get things horribly wrong. And you don’t have to try very hard. Even when you think you’re doing it right, you probably aren’t.

Like the day I gave Steven his first proper bath – an incident we still laugh about (well, I don’t find it that funny, personally). The poor baby started yelling and squirming in the bath and I couldn’t figure out why. I checked the water temperature (for the fifth time, with both elbows, wrists and probably my tongue as well), I checked for nappy rash (no chance of that, his nappy was changed roughly every fifteen minutes, whether or not he thought of weeing in it), I searched for pin pricks (even though I used one of those Snappi things and not a safety pin). Then I noticed the colour of his arm. And not a moment too soon – it was probably about to fall off. That corpsy shade of bluish-purple scared me so much I very nearly did drop him in the water. In my zeal, I’d held his arm too tightly. Then, in my fluster, I managed to get soap on his hands which he rubbed into his eyes. Goddammit. Don’t you know you’re not supposed to soap baby’s hands? Didn’t you read the books? They’re very clear on this point. Next thing you’ll be feeding him Sto-pain intravenously – and then you’re one step away from those mothers who let their children run with scissors. Call yourself a mother? Sheesh.

This was a new voice in my head, a new incarnation of Sensible Tracy, but more like Sensible-Tracy-On-Crack, perhaps. Sensible-Gone-Psycho. Sensible Tracy from the Seventh Circle of Hell. I think she came standard with my brand new guilt gland. Sensible-Gone-Psycho’s job is to make me doubt myself. She’s the evil little demon sitting on my shoulder, whispering how pathetic I am – 24/7.

She knows all the tricks, and she’s sneaky. She disguises herself as the Voice of Good Motherliness, but she lies. She convinces me I can’t have the things I want, she shouts at me when I get things wrong, she tells me I don’t deserve to be happy. I’ve taken to calling her Sister Tracy, because she has the shrill nails-on-a-blackboard voice of a nun I once knew. She’s settled in very comfortably over the years, and these days it seems she’s pretty much in charge. Not so healthy. I need to kill her off, but I don’t know how. I’m thinking arsenic. Or a stake through the heart. Seriously, that bitch must die.