Call me repetitive, but sometimes, like the chorus of your all time favourite songs, some lines are worth hearing again. On Saturday at Scarlett’s birthday party I moved myself to tears by gazing round the wall at the 100 or so pictures of her we’d stuck up. There was the photo of my very pregnant tummy, the picture of her and I gazing at each other moments after her birth, pictures of her chubby little baby face smiling, images of her toddlerhood, snapshots of her climbing, running, jumping, painting, sleeping, laughing, smiling, living.
Today, as is customary the day before a birthday I have asked her how old she is many times – ‘four!’ comes the reply and as it is the very last time she’ll be giving that answer I didn’t tire of it today ( although I suspect she did!). She insists she’s going to miss being four, she says she’s really liked it. 🙂 I’ve liked it too, she’s been one hell of a four year old! In the style of TV show montage I’m going to mark the occassion this year with a selection of snippets of my own birthday posts for her from the past and some of my favourite images of the last year.
2nd birthday
So here we are two years on and that helpless little bundle is a raging two year old. In two short years she has learnt to walk, talk, wind me up beyond belief and is more of a person already than some people ever become. She is fiercely independant and will give affection – but on her terms, which makes her hug you till you burst cuddles and push your hair back from your face before kissing you all over kisses all the more precious and special. Her ‘ove oo mummy’ is always well timed (middle of the night when she has asked for juice again, when she has driven you almost to tears by emptying the sudocrem out over the stairs again). She adores her brother to the point of hero worship, and will stand up for him against any child who crosses her, she is charming, bewitching and adorable as well as naughty, cheeky and completely unphased by me shouting!
She has left her mark everywhere – she has added to the crisscross pattern of pregnancies on my tummy, she has scribbled on walls, stained the carpets, emptied perfumes, broken lipsticks, changed our lives, completed our family.
3rd birthday
This year Scarlett’s personality has developed even further, she has likes and dislikes (and hates with a passion!), she is fiercely independant, challenging, adorable, loving, charming and bright. She is the little girl who receives compliments from strangers 🙂 . She loves me and her Daddy, her big brother and our cats. She loves Dora and Barbie Girl, she loves to sing and dance and climb, she loves babies and pink, she loves to sparkle and twinkle, she loves to play in muddy puddles. When she grows up she is going to be ‘just like you Mummy!’ she likes to have her nails painted and then she picks it straight off, she likes to wear pretty clothes and then take them off and run naked. Every moment I spend with her makes me wonder how someone so much a person in their own right can stay so much a part of me. She makes me laugh a hundred times a day, she melts my heart with her kisses, she’s a princess, a minx, my biggest ever challenge, my biggest ever success.
4th birthday
Whilst there are still many obvious traces of the toddler you have been the glimpses into the past to see the baby I once cradled are more fleeting, more rare and more precious. When you sleep the shadow cast by your eyelashes onto your cheek is still the same, when you curl your fingers around mine although your nails are painted and your hands are so much bigger it is still the same grip as when you were hours old. Although your legs dangle way down to my knees when we cuddle you still fit in my arms the same, although there is frequently an overtone of Barbie spray about your scent, when I bury my face into your neck you still have that same Scarlett smell about you that you did when you were a newborn, and when I look deep into your eyes I can still see into the same soul I gazed at seconds after you were born.
They say you don’t know what you’ve got til it’s gone. I also believe you don’t necessary know what you were missing until it came along and completed you. And that’s what you did Tarly. You completed me as a mother of a son and a daughter, you completed Davies as a big brother, Daddy and I as a family rather than simply parents and all the generations above us.
You are bold, beautiful and brave. You are reckless, feckless and fearless. It’s been a rollercoaster of a four years and far from you being born a blank canvas I feel I have barely scratched the surface so far of who you are. I hope that everyone who is honoured enough to have you in their lives realises how priviledged they are but most of all I hope you continue to be aware of how wonderful you are.
And just before bedtime tonight, last picture of her being four!
It’s been great sharing four with you Scarlett, I can’t wait for five. Happy birthday darling xxxx