With Molli in the house it'd be hard to say things are normal—I don't think it was normal, for example, to have spent ninety minutes this morning curled up on the couch with my six-pound daughter as a human pacifier to buy some time for Trine to sleep. Nor do I think it's normal to get through a weekend on ten hours of sleep without having knocked back a drop of whiskey. But I'm getting used to these things, they're not likely to change soon, and I need the release of all these electric pages to keep my own head together.

So, once again, I've cobbled together a non-Mollicentric Almanac. And there'll be more expat blogging in this space soon.

But before I sally forth into this brave new normal, let me thank all of you who've commented or emailed with support, good wishes, congratulations, and gratuitous praise for the stunning good looks of little Molli Malou. Thank you. Those little comments and emails may not have felt very significant, but they helped me feel a lot less isolated throughout all the highs and lows of the last 8 weeks or so. You rock.