Happy Birthday Loulou

Fifteen yrs ago today the most wonderful, precocious, impossible and delightful little girl came into this world. She was so tiny and sweet. Little waves of soft blonde hair and the MOST PERFECT rosebud mouth you ever saw. Word in the operating theatre that day was that this little girl took her own sweet time in taking her first unassisted breath, giving all doctors and nurses a nasty scare. Defiant from her first breath.

Having had my third C-sec in a tiny country motel hospital I stayed for 7 days, cocooned in blissful safety and quiet. My sweet little baby girl slept the week away, tiny smiles flickering across her face as she dreamed of pennywhistles and moonpies.

On day 8 I came home to real life, with a 3.5 yr old (undiagnosed) aspie boy, and a sweet 20 month old little girl, just 25 yrs old myself with a husband feeling the weight of responsibility for a wife and three small children like a noose around his neck.

The new baby cried, unsettled from the rawness of real life.
The new baby cried at her brother and her sister, at her father and her mother.
She cried in her pram, in the rocker, in their arms or her cradle.
She cried before a feed, during a feed and after a feed.
She cried at new sounds, she cried at silence. she cried on movement and she cried at stillness.
She was the most angry little ball of baby I had ever, ever met.

Tiptoe-ing became a way of life. The muscles in my right arm will forever be bigger than the left due to the hours of bellydown rocking I did as I wailed on the phone to my sister and mother. The only thing that soothed her was to roll up a towel to make a speed bump on the floor, then rhythmically drive the pram over the bump, forward, then back, forward then back as she slid up and down the pram bed like a little torpedo.

Misery had a new sherriff and she was shooting from both barrels until she felt independant. She was commando crawling at 3 months, screeching at everyone and determined to have her way. By six months she was on her hands and knees chasing everyone. THANK GOD. Those first six months are still like the abyss of hell. I don't know how we all emerged from that still intact.

My baby girl turns 15 today.

She has grown into a hilarious, beautiful, smart and loving girl. She still has a temper that can strip paint when it gets going, and her "It's not Fair" radar is hyper-alert. she is still fiercely independant and protective of herself and her family. She has many friends, does well at school, can make me laugh like no-one else and is the beating of my heart each day.

Happy birthday sweet girl xx