Two Years of …

I struggle to fill that word above… Two years of… what? Motherhood? Caring? Sleeplessness? Lack of control over my life? Trouble (as a name or a concept?!) Chaos? Laughs? Tears? Emotion.

Emotion.

That’s the word. Tumultuous, unstoppable, uncontrollable emotion. In all its raw and unedited, heart-wrenching crazy. Some days are wonderful, some days are horrendous and I’ve yet to work out a formula to predict which is which. The planned days of brilliance, excitement and activities rarely live up to the anticipation or expense. The spontaneous moments of grabbed teas in supermarket cafes which end in laughter, new games, new words and new smiles as a family and a coherent unit of shared experiences.

My little baby is developing into a girl. You are into pretending, creating and eating. Not necessarily in that order. You play shop. You play chef. You play chopping. You play shopping. You play doctors and tests the heartbeat of all and any children in your radius.

You stick. You will swathe anything and everything with glue. PVA glue is occasionally mistaken for biscuit icing and vice versa. You are less interested in attaching things to the said gluey bits of paper – that is normally left to Mummy in order for the walk home to end up less ‘drippy’. We go to playgroups and playdates and you are mostly lovely and occasionally less so. You are always a force to be reckoned with and rarely do anything at a stroll when sprinting is possible. You are excitable, loving, caring and enthusiastic, to the point of exuberant. I can’t think where you get that from.

You eat everything. Without exception. You are currently obsessed with a-PULLS (meaning pears) and TOOOOmas (meaning satsumas, oranges, or anything orange and peelable). It’s hard to turn down ever more extravagant requests for fruit all day, every day, but needs must. Your poor tummy could not physically handle the volume of fructose you would happily ingest.

It’s your birthday tomorrow. You are having a party with your friends and you are starting to understand that something must be happening. When your friends sang Happy Birthday at playgroup yesterday, you clocked that everyone was looking at you and did the most natural thing in the world: you lifted your dress over your head. Excelllent.

Wherever we go, people remember you and remember your name. Your smile is brilliant and your energy awesome. You will no doubt challenge us in ways I cannot even imagine in the years to come, but for now, I can’t quite believe how far we have come in the last year.

Happy birthday my little bag of Trouble.