Despite years and years of
being handed other peoples babies and not knowing what to do with them, I was
different with Beautiful B different from day one and we were attached to one another
– she would lie on me for hours gripping my finger and refusing to let go;
except when she puked up her milk each and every time she ate. Looking back now, I should have tried a
different formula but at 21 years old I tried everything else but that.
Petrified that she had the
blockage that they had forewarned and scanned me for throughout my pregnancy I
worried when she was first sick in the hospital while everyone else thought the
distance she projected it was impressive!
I have weird friends and family!
Watching her under the scanning machine while they checked her insides
was heart breaking but the news was good and 3 days later we were home.
Within 6 weeks milk wasn’t
enough for Beautiful B and she was too small to take the amount she needed to
fill her up so the health visitor suggested baby rice. Cue the beginning of Beautiful B being weaned onto real food earlier than anyone else
ever expected. True to form, she refused
all baby food except stewed carrots and the fear of her turning orange at the
amount of it she was eating I started giving her home made fare of spaghetti bolognaise, shepherds pie and stew
etc.
Anyone would have thought that
she might want to be an artist after witnessing her nice almost symmetrical square
coloured in with a blue biro on a cream leather suite – one has to wonder what
they put in baby wipes as those and milk got rid of that pesky square!
Beautiful B has always been small 5 lbs 10 oz when born, at 3 ½ years
she was in clothes for an 18 month old and even now, 17 years on she has yet to
hit 5 feet and I doubt she ever will.
She is my little bundle of joy; the best things really do come in small
packages.
As all mothers and daughters
do we have had our ups and downs, boundaries have been pushed and at times we have
gone through the same heart break and helped each other through. She has been my best friend since the day she
was born and as I have said time and time again, she has enough empathy for all
the people in the UK.
Learning to let go and accept
that she has to experience heartache and that I cannot shield it from her
forever because how will she ever cope when she moves out from under my wing
has been both hard and heart breaking.
Yet, she has done us proud showing the determination to see the silver
lining in every cloud. Despite thinking
that I haven’t purposely brought her up to think in such a way I have obviously
done so by some other method, maybe osmosis, as she lives by the same values
that I try and demonstrate daily.
I have had 3 conversations in
as many days about how time flies, how it doesn’t seem that long ago that she
was an 11 year old telling me that the Hubby I would marry in a few year was ‘most definitely not only 32 because
his mother was far too old to have a 32 year old’. It doesn’t seem like 6 years ago that he
moved in and Beth sat on the bed while we unpacked his belongings laughing at
my attempt to show him how to fold a jumper ‘correctly’. It certainly doesn’t seem as long ago as it
was when she told me that ‘she knew something I didn’t know’ because Hubby had asked her permission to marry me.
Yes, I wish I could take away
the heart ache that she has suffered over the past 10 years, any mother would,
and certainly over the last 2-3 years yet experiencing that heart ache, and
hopefully feeling that she was supported through it, most if not all of the
time, has helped shape her into the wonderful young woman that she is today. I can and do hate that she has had to go
through it but I love the person she is turning out to be because of it – if only
there was a way to do that minus the heartache.
She is a young woman who has
listened to her mum when she told her repeatedly that she needed to find
‘another Hubby’; someone who would treat her like a queen but not
spoil her, someone who would love her for who she is, what she has experienced
and could help carry some of the baggage that she hasn’t yet been able to let
go off. She has found him and to watch
her be so very happy with him is magical.
One day my daughter will fly
the nest, I won’t just have a house that has felt very quiet for 2 weeks, I
will have it for an extended period of time and although I know that is what I
am grooming her for, to continue to be the productive member of society that
she is, to be loving and caring, respectful and empathetic and I am not quite
sure that I will find that ‘quietness’ at all comfortable to cope with.
For now, I will enjoy having
my daughter at home, who will forever be my little Beautiful B, both in nature, mind and body (as she can’t really help
being a shrimpit), telling me about her day, coming to me for hugs and
affection and I will savour every minute of it.
If the rate at how fast the last 19 years have gone it won’t be too long
before she leaves to live a life full of the lessons I have taught her.
I only hope that I have shown
her, throughout the years, just how much she is loved and adored. That she has always known that I love her, no
matter what and that she hears it frequently.
I will always adore my daughter, until the stars fall out of the sky,
and I hope that I have achieved a little of what I set out to do and that is to
show my daughter just how much she is loved and that she passes that message on
and more to her own children over time.
Happy 19th birthday
my Beautiful B. The number of years that have gone by disappear in a
heart beat as I can still see you as you were when you were given to me and my
first words were ‘oooh I have a baby’.
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