With a sneaky edited timestamp to get this on the right day.
I’ve done my eighth birthday post for those of you who like to wallow in sentimentality with me feel free to click the link to the page on the right, for those who don’t feel free to ignore it ;).
Davies all but saw in his birthday by staying awake until about 1145pm the night before and he more than saw it out by still being awake playing his DS until past 1am bless him. He does like to maximise his celebrating (chip right off the old block!).
I’d spoken to him the day before about how he was born at 435am and by about 7am he and I were back on the ward cuddling. Ady had gone home, most of the other people on the ward were asleep and I just sat there gazing at him and thinking ahead to all the September the 14th of the future. When I had Davies I had never even held a baby before let alone done any of the more tricky practical baby caring tasks but I always felt like he and I were in it together really – after all he’d never done any of it before either. I still view motherhood a bit like that really; a partnership between me and my children which is in our mutual best interests to get as right as we can with discussion, challenges, amendments and a whole lot of experimentation along the way. Davies is a bloody good partner to have dealt to me in that as he offers many a challenge and many a reward as we go, both of us learning all the time and mostly having a lot of fun together as we do it. So I asked him to come to our bed first thing in the morning on his birthday so he and I could have another early morning cuddle and I could get my fix of special Nic and Davies time and think to birthdays past and future while holding my baby in my arms while he is still small enough for it to be that way round rather than the other 😆 .
I’d not gotten to sleep until about 3am so my just after 7am wake up call was at about the same level of grogginess I’d been feeling at 7am on the ward 8 years ago but when his excitement could no longer be contained we came downstairs for grand present opening.
From us he had 2 DS games; Drawn to Life (which is just so very, very Davies) and Monkey Ball which is one of his favourite Xbox games and seems to translate well to DS. Various Doctor Who bits and pieces (several characters, remote control Dalek, Masters screwdriver) which Ady has been finding cheap and stockpiling – we have more set aside for Christmas and a scooter.
From Scarlett he got a Ben 10 t shirt that she’d found and insisted on getting for him last week but I’d made her hold off giving him until his birthday.
From Chris and Julie he’d got a watercolour paintbook and a very posh paintbrush that they’d sent in the post.
As is tradition in our family Scarlett got a present too – a Sarah Jane sonic lipstick and a scooter. This was a practise my parents always did with me and my brother – my birthday is just after Christmas and his is May so it worked well and eased the trickiness of a siblings birthday which I always recall as a slightly tough day on the non-birthday sibling. It frees Davies up to enjoy his presents without over-interest from Scarlett and means she is in a better frame of mind and we often manage to get something complementary to the birthday childs’ gifts too hence the scooters.
I drank serious quantities of tea to keep my upright, Scarlett scootered around the house crashing into things, Davies sat quietly and played with his DS games and then I got out the Kenwood chef to test it’s cake mixing abilities. I have to say I am impressed – the only washing up is the bowl and mixing accessory so no greater than if done by hand and it whisked the mixture beautifully 🙂 and the butter icing (a job I hate). The cake was at Davies’ request an omnitrix which handily looks a bit like an 8. He wanted buttercream icing which always gives a rather plastered on home made effect but he’s not so keen on royal icing so buttercream it was.
At midday we headed over to my parents for lunch. Davies got another 2 Ben 10 characters from my parents and Frazer (and his premium bonds which mean very little to him now but I imagine he’ll be grateful for one day) and a cheque from Great Granny which he cashed today to spend. We always used to put any birthday money recieved into the children’s bank accounts but now we are less financially able to get them everything they want we let them spend it and I think it helps their appreciation of money as a finite resource. We are not in a position to give them pocket money and I am not entirely convinved of it as a concept for teaching money management anyway. We tend to have all the family money pooled as one pot which if there is any spare gets spent on something we all enjoy really which tends to be holidays or trips rather than ‘stuff’ although when we do have spare cash they often get a chunk to spend on something rather than a trickle throughout the year.
We had a nice lunch; Davies was keen to get back to his DS game and sat in the lounge with Ady while Scarlett entertained Granny, Mum, Dad and I by leading us in a game of I spy with letters (we usually use colours) and being able to do it 😯 deciding who’s turn it was with eeny meeny miny mo and then getting us all to play a game where she’d mixed up everyone’s noses and we had to guess who’s we had which was hilarious and she was clearly keeping track so had all sorts of maths skills going on with her mental spreadsheet of which nose was on which person.
Scarlett and I took a walk round the block with her scooter using the alleyway I’d gone through on my bike as a child. I pointed out various things like houses where other children we’d played with had lived and various other Childhood of Mummy type trivia. We both really enjoyed it :).
When we got home we did the birthday cake
and then as that made us all feel quite sluggish Ady, Mum, Davies, Scarlett and I went on another scooter / walk. When we got back Mum and I rang to book a table in the Harvester where Davies had requested we go for an evening meal and then we headed home for a quiet couple of hours before meeting at the Harvester later.
The children mostly DS’d, Davies and I took it in turns to read words on his Drawn to Life game as he keeps saying he wants to be able to read but seems to want / need a bit of encouragement to actually practice – or maybe it’s just reminding he needs?
We met Mum, Dad and Frazer at the Harvester and there was a Happy Birthday balloon on the table which Davies was all chuffed about. We had a really nice meal (considering. It is just a slight step up from McDonalds IMO but Davies wanted steak and chips and loved the idea of the children’s menu having that). The children were thrilled to spend time with Frazer who they adore. They did very well considering they were at the bitter end of a very long week with birthday excitement and sugar levels way above average but we were completely ready to get home at 9pm. I fell asleep with my laptop on my lap and went to bed around midnight but Davies was still awake and I think woke Ady at 130am to ask what something on his DS said at which point Ady turned it off and told him to go to sleep. Yep, he certainly got every minute he could from his birthday :).