My baby turns one year old tomorrow

Can you Adam and Eve it?!!

That is a long drool string and that is mango mush on his babygro

I know we all say it but I cannot believe a year has passed already. Time seems to speed up the older I get and goes faster and faster with each baby that arrives. I suppose it is because I am quite busy too. My one year old is way more distracting these days. He is simply adorable and I find it very hard to drag myself away from him sometimes. Perhaps it is because he is our last baby. Mind you, I say he is my last baby but since Little Cuckoo is the only child who was actually planned and tried for...well you just never know. I haven't the foggiest how Mini came about actually. I think we must have shared bath water or something!

This past year has been, on reflection, completely marvellous. To think that this time last year I was terrified of having three children, nervous and bewildered about how I was going to manage the day to day runnings of family life. I couldn't see how I was going to spread myself out amongst all the boys, catering to their individual and diverse needs. I expected the new baby to be a challenging like the other two. Don't get me wrong they were delightful and I loved them insanely but they were quite difficult babies. So when Mini joined us and turned out to be the sweetest smiley baby I have ever met, well I couldn't believe my luck. Yes of course he has had his moments of shrieking, but I can honestly say I we haven't had a single totally sleepless night. He is still waking most nights but just for ten minutes and he settles immediately, he always has done. He is pure sunshine. (aside: I am in the snug and I can hear Mr C in the kitchen playing with Mini's birthday present - a keyboard and microphone like the one he loved at Clairey's when we visited her last week- hilarious. He has just come in stating that it is awesome so at least I know someone will enjoy it!) He is mellow and placid and just lovely altogether. He fits in perfectly and we are all so in love with him.

I feel so stupid now for being scared of having three children, three boys felt like a cruel joke to a girly girl like me. But oh how I have changed my tune. I now find myself watching the Merry Band of Brothers playing and I feel like the most fortunate mother on earth.

Happy Birthday dear Mini Cuckoo, 

you have made everything in this life brighter and we all dote on you.

If you would like to read about his arrival then go here. 

xxx

ps. I am waaaaaay behind with everything blog, both the posts I want to write and the blogs I want to read and comment on. I am also very behind with replying to the comments on my last couple of posts. I absolutely love hearing your comments and I do like to reply to them all. This is sometimes a bit tricky if you are a No-Reply-Blogger. To change your setting read this post and you'll be sorted!

pps. Thank you to those (you know who you are) who have been in touch to see if I'm ok. I'm good, I feel well. Thank you for checking up on me. I never expect people to notice my absence, so I was enormously touched that I was missed!  

Bed time

Did you know my Granny Blanket has magical sleep inducing qualities? Well, it does. It really does. Everyone who snuggles under it falls in to a deep restorative sleep. This is why I am fannying about snapping away at it rather than snuggling under it. You see I haven't had enough fluid today which means I am thirsty at bedtime which means I need to guzzle some water which means I need to postpone bedtime till I've had a really big wee wee. TMI? Ha!! I've had wine and am in the mood for sharing secrets....sometimes I pretend there's a secret camera watching me and I act in front of it. I talk through the steps I take to cook a meal or wash up or what ever. I pretend I am being filmed and I do little asides to the camera. I am sooooo juvenile! I doubt I'll ever stop this little quirk that is a remnant from being an only child who moved county roughly every two years till I was 11. I am never bored. Ever. There's always an exciting play going on in my mind.

xxx

ps. An update on my friends daughters well being: Minnie is doing really well. She has a lot of confusion and pain but all the xrays have come back with good news. Soon this will be a distant memory for all but I hope the lessons learnt will never be forgotten

A Cautionary Tale

Today, as the bulbs valiantly tried to spring into life along the roadside of my little village, I held my friend up whilst we watched her beautiful 17 year old daughter being cut out of a car wreck. My arms gripping hold of her tightly, the tinfoil blanket slipped as she shook. 

As I looked on and saw the 'jaws of life' cut the roof off the car I noticed all the small details of renewed life around us whilst desperately praying that this young girls life, the life she knew, was not ebbing away. She was conscious and breathing steadily but she was still. So still. While her Mother shook, and my lungs felt fit to burst from running through the barricade in the minus 5 degree cold, she lay in the car with out any sign of motion. She had head and spinal injuries they said, they couldn't guess how severe. Three fire engines, two ambulances, two police cars, a swarm of people in high visibility coats with walkie talkies blaring, all bustling about rescuing a girl so beautiful it seemed totally surreal to see her with blood trailing down her cheek and yet her lipstick intact with a freshly applied appearance.

It seemed wrong that just a hundred yards from her home she was so still and quiet whilst organised chaos carried on around her. Everyone else involved in the collision simply got out of the cars and were unscathed although visibly shaken. You see she hadn't quite got her seat belt buckled. The driver had started off down the road before she'd clicked her seat belt locked. Her head had hit the windscreen and bent backwards, her body had pushed into her neck. 

Those times when you are just popping down the road. Put your seat belt on. Those times you are driving along and putting your seat belt on... stop doing that. Put it on before you put the car in gear. Those times when your friend/husband/child jumps into your waiting car. Don't pull away till you hear the click. You think you'll be ok. You think those few paltry seconds don't matter. I have seen today that they matter plenty. What the hell do you say to reassure when your eye's are looking at a limp girl being cut out of a car? What can you do? What can you say? 

My friends daughter is going to be ok. But for a few hours this morning it looked like her life as an able bodied girl full of vitality might have been over. She has been spared, she will be ok. She will take a while to heal but she will recover.

xxx