Exactly 12 years ago yesterday, the kindly but impatient surgical team at Cheltenham General Hospital removed a small, wailing creature from behind the sterile green half-curtain shielding me from the oh-so-hideous knowledge of what they were actually doing, and placed it on my chest for the briefest of moments before it was picked up again by a briskly scrubbed nurse to be weighed and measured like some kind of giant turnip.
(don't worry, this is not about to become a minute by minute account of pregnancy and childbirth, because some things are better kept to myself. Let's just say it involved gestational diabetes and pre-eclampsia. It is not a wonder there is only one of her)
Yesterday she woke at 6.10am, opened her presents with the appropriate amount of squealing with excitement before consuming blueberry and raspberry pancakes with maple syrup. Yes, I did make her go to school. Yes, I am very mean. Yes, I did enjoy having the day to myself after making such an epic breakfast on a week-day.In the evening we went to our favourite all-you-can-stuff-in Chinese with my parents, sister, brother in law and nephew. We did indeed stuff-ourselves-all-we-could.
But she will not keep a straight face for photos, not even for the one the staff take when it's your birthday - then they sing happy birthday and you have to blow the candle out on:
the traditional deep-fried ice cream dessert (tastes amazing, before you ask).
And that was it - the very last ever child-age birthday she will have - I have to admit to a small amount of sniffing and swallowing the lump in my throat. Next year, she will be 13 and A Teenager (this also means that the husband and I have made it to 16 years this year - hardly something we credited ourselves with managing) - we are battening down the hatches.
So, before we tucked ourselves into our little house for the night, I manage to get one final, smiley picture of her:
And about 10 where she is doing her bird impression:
Not very often, but occasionally, I am hit with a pang that there are no brothers and sisters, and that the large, happily, messily home-educated family I'd envisaged having will never be. Then I watch her practising the piano, running around with friends, telling her grandad about how she'll save the tigers, or just reading and I realise that our little unit is pretty damn perfect for this funny little folky child being our only centre.
Happy birthday Tabitha Lily, hope you enjoyed it. Do you think we could have a later start next year?
But she will not keep a straight face for photos, not even for the one the staff take when it's your birthday - then they sing happy birthday and you have to blow the candle out on:
the traditional deep-fried ice cream dessert (tastes amazing, before you ask).
And that was it - the very last ever child-age birthday she will have - I have to admit to a small amount of sniffing and swallowing the lump in my throat. Next year, she will be 13 and A Teenager (this also means that the husband and I have made it to 16 years this year - hardly something we credited ourselves with managing) - we are battening down the hatches.
So, before we tucked ourselves into our little house for the night, I manage to get one final, smiley picture of her:
And about 10 where she is doing her bird impression:
Not very often, but occasionally, I am hit with a pang that there are no brothers and sisters, and that the large, happily, messily home-educated family I'd envisaged having will never be. Then I watch her practising the piano, running around with friends, telling her grandad about how she'll save the tigers, or just reading and I realise that our little unit is pretty damn perfect for this funny little folky child being our only centre.
Happy birthday Tabitha Lily, hope you enjoyed it. Do you think we could have a later start next year?
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