Open letter to my firstborn on his 1st birthday

Dear Big Munchkin

Happy 1st birthday darling! I hope you've enjoyed your first year of life!

You should know that when you were born you completed me. I felt like I had always known you from the very first second that I held you. I was absolutely 100% born to be your mummy. It was the most incredible feeling.

You were born 10 days before your due date which we were really pleased about so that you didn’t have to celebrate your birthday with Christmas.

On the Wednesday I was on my way to hospital for a class on breastfeeding (too much information? Sorry!) when I tripped over a bit of pavement jutting out, and being very heavily pregnant I had no centre of gravity and fell straight over, landing on the bump being the bit that stuck out the most.  Also having a massive lump for a tummy meant I struggled to get back up again (daddy asked if I looked like a beetle rolling round on my back…) and two bin men had to help me up. They were very sweet and told me I should go straight to the hospital to get checked out. As soon as I walked away from them I cried and cried, my knee was bleeding, I’d bruised my arm and leg and I rang daddy in hysterics I was so worried I had damaged you. I went straight to hospital (still crying!) and the midwives checked us out, took blood samples, blood pressure, listened to your heart beat, checked you were moving and that I wasn’t bleeding and after a few hours let us go home.  That night I went into labour!  I still have no idea if our crash induced you to come out early or you were naturally going to come out then anyway…..

Contractions started at about 1am on the Thursday morning and were quite low key through the night. Daddy went to work the next morning and I remember the cleaner coming over and me telling her I had some period like pains. By mid morning they were quite sore but I was convinced that they were false ones (I even wrote on Facebook “if these are what false contractions feel like I’m not looking forward to the real thing”). I tried to read the baby books about labour that had arrived that morning (nothing like being prepared!) but was a bit sore. I wasn’t going out anyway because I’d lost my confidence following our fall the day before, but I spoke to a few people during the day and at about 6 or 7pm grandma suggested that I ask Daddy to come home to look after me. I rang him and said “I’m not in labour, but it does hurt and it would be nice if you could come home” and he did. He came home and timed the contractions properly and guess what?  They were real contractions! Contractions were about 3 minutes apart by 2am so we rang the hospital and went in, but I wasn’t far enough advanced and we were sent home again. We finally went back in at 7am, having been up all night (labour really is quite painful I’m sorry to say!). To cut a long story short, I got put in a birthing pool, had a little bit of gas and air (although had to stop taking it when it made me really sick) and you were born in the water at 2.54pm. Watching you literally swim out of me (the midwives don’t intervene in a water birth) and then be put straight on my chest with the cord still attached was THE most amazing thing I think I will ever experience!

You were born 7lb 1oz and were 53cm long and you were born with the most gorgeous head of hair – brown with blonde highlights, it was amazing! You were a little blue (which apparently is normal – we didn’t know that at the time!) and you snuggled up on me like you belonged there. We didn’t know whether we were having a boy or a girl, but you looked just like your scan photos, and it was like I had always known you. It almost wasn’t a surprise when you turned up - it was a bit like "oh, hello, there you are. I've been expecting you”– it was very weird... even after an hour of you being born it felt like I had always been your mummy... like I was born to be your mummy. It was you. Of course it was you. It was always going to be you. I could not have been happier! I felt complete the moment you arrived.

You even chose your own name – while Daddy was in the toilet I told the midwife our choice of two names and you screwed your 5 minute old face up at one of them! So there we had it! Poor Daddy came out of the toilet and you’d already been named….

We have since had the most incredible year together. You are beautiful and loving. You eat well and sleep well (you’ve slept through the night since you were 12 weeks old and always to 7 or 8am), you always wake up smiling, you love cuddles and you giggle constantly. Stroking your nose helps you to get to sleep (you’ve even started stroking your own nose now) and you always check where I am in a room when someone else is holding you. You have a special smile reserved for me and Daddy where your whole face just lights up with genuine delight when you see us. Its an absolute treat every time!

We love you more than we have ever loved anything ever. You are a complete precious treasure who is an absolute pleasure to spend time with, and you are adored by everyone.

Thank for being my beautiful baby boy. I will always love you!

Love Mummy xx

(My) Top Ten Things

At a wedding once, one of our friends got cross with his girlfriend because she had failed to mention that there was ham on the evening buffet and by the time he’d got there it had all gone. It turns out ham (yes, ham!) is one of his top ten things ever! It led to a weekend of discussing what would feature in our Top Ten.

Inevitably some rules had to be made after lists started to appear like this: 1) my mum 2) my dad 3) ham 4) my girlfriend 5) my brother etc  and the game degenerated into Top Ten Food and Top Ten Films and even Top Ten Apples (one of our friends had 4 different types of apple in his Top Ten list of everything – make of him what you will!). Those peculiarities aside, here’s my Top Ten as of today.

1) My boys (obviously) and all the fantastic joys and privileges of being their mummy (I could have a Top Ten list of the things I love about each of them individually but for the purpose of this assume that’s all included in the top slot here)

2) My husband (he completely understands relegation to second place following the birth of our babies!)

3) My family and friends

4) Good food (I debated splitting it out and giving Crisps, Chocolate, Spare Ribs, Fajitas and Chinese Roast Duck separate entries – but then I ran out of numbers in my top ten….), especially with: 

5) Wine (yes, I do think this deserves a whole category to itself J)

6) Sunshine on my face (particularly in May, Summer and September. Actually anytime really)

7) Outdoor pursuits like horse-riding, ski-ing, scuba diving and swimming with dolphins (I should point out I have only done the last one once, whilst on holiday in New Zealand, but it was absolutely spectacular and the experience has always stayed with me)

8) Trying new things (I used to have a new years resolution that I had to try something new every year – this led to a very broad range of temporary hobbies!)

9) Holidays (anywhere!!)

10) Laughing & dancing (see what I mean about having too many things to limit to a Top Ten!)

What would your Top Ten be?

I know that as soon as I post this list I am going to think of at least 5 other things that should have featured on the list – my husband started to cheat when writing his list to fit more in. What was originally “friends” “a good night out” and “an open fire” merged into “sitting with friends in front of an open fire having a really good pint and giggles”  which only counted as one entry rather than three. It’s your own list and your own rules though so play the game however you want!

Now please excuse me while I get the little fried egg sweets back to the cupboard before my son realises they’ve gone and mummy gets relegated out of his Top Ten………..