Upon request from my English readership (of about 5) who find Google Translate woefully inadequate, I will from now on try to include short English summaries on my blog posts. 

Our Eddie doesn’t look like this any more, I hasten to add. (Original photo here.)

So this is me, Katie (as named by my Dear Husband, aka DH, or Mies in Finnish), blogging about my now seven-and-a-half-month-old son Eddie (so pseudonymed after Eddie the monster of the Iron Maiden record sleeves, whom he strongly resembled in his 13-week scan) and our life in North London. My blog name, Aika kypsä äidiksi, is a play on words: it translates both as ”A Rather Mature Mother” (which I am, at 41) and ”The Time is Ripe for Motherhood” (which it definitely was, after over five years of waiting for Eddie to arrive, which he did after three rounds of IVF following a diagnosis of grade IV endometriosis and two surgeries). Furthermore, as a reader pointed out, there is a third way to interpret the blog title; it can also be read as ”At My Wits’ End as a Mother”. But we are not there yet! 🙂 Ah, this lovely Finnish language and its twists and turns…

The protagonist nowadays.

My dear English readers, I am afraid commenting on the blogs of this Lily portal has been made rather tricky without the knowledge of Finnish, but if you are brave enough to try, this is how it goes: 

1. Click ’Kommentoi’ at the bottom of each blog post (or the speech bubble under the blog post title)
2. Add your name or pseudonym on ’Nimimerkki’
3. Put your email address on ’Sähköpostiosoite / E-mail’ (it will only be available to me and won’t be shown in public)
4. If you are a blogger too, you can write your blog URL address on ’Blogin URL’
5. Write your comment on ’Comment’ 
6. Answer the CAPTCHA question of ’Mikä on ensimmäinen/toinen/kolmas/neljäs/viides sana?’ i.e. what is the first/second/third/fourth/fifth word in the list following the colon.
7. If you manage to cross that hurdle, congratulations! Now press ’Julkaise’ for publicising your comment, and it should be listed in the comments immediately. (But if you rather get a red box saying ’Antamasi CAPTCHA vastaus ei ole oikein’ you’ve made a mistake with CAPTCHA. Try again.)

Welcome, English-speaking world and its endless possibilities! (Har har. This is a small diary of a suburban mother, not a lifestyle blog of a glamourous yummy mummy, I’m afraid. No commercial opportunities here.)

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Eli Aika kypsä äidiksi on tästä lähtien myös tiivistetty englanniksi. Ensimmäiset viisi lukijaa ovat jo ilmoittautuneet, jee!