Happy Birthday Oscar

Every year, on their birthdays, I write my children a birthday blog.

This year, on Oscar’s birthday, I forgot.

In my defence, it was a very bad week, and I had a splitting migraine, but it still isn’t good.

This is always the way with your children I find.  Your first child has acres of love and attention lavished on it. You fill in baby books. You mark every single mile stone they have. You carve their names in stone, irrevocably lodged in your mind.  Their first step, their first tooth. It’s all there…

By the time you get to baby number six you are probably leaving them on buses, or shoving them up chimneys and letting them fend for themselves.  Or releasing them into the wild and simply denying all knowledge.

There is simply too much to remember.

You love them just as much, but you simply do not have the luxury of time any more.

Which is a shame.

I do feel bad that I have taken this long to remember to write Oscar’s birthday post.

So, my apologies my dearest boy, and know that I have slung an extra twenty quid into the therapy pot on your behalf for this moment alone.

Mea culpa.

Although it is late, this post is just as heartfelt as it would have been on the day itself.  That I promise you.

Oscar, you are six years old.  You find this ageing thing a bit scary sometimes, I know.

I know I do, and I’ve had much more time to get used to it.

What’s worse is that I find your ageing a bit scary too.

You are my very last baby, and I really cannot call you a baby now can I? Six year olds simply are not babies any more.  You are my boy.

My best and brightest boy.

I write this every year, but I am still so very glad that you still think it’s cool to kiss and hug me with great passion and a certain amount of verve.  The odd squeeze of my boob could probably be dropped now, if I’m honest, but if that’s what it takes to get a hug out of a boy child I might put up with it for a wee bit longer.

I do not recommend it as a sure fire winner to attracting ladies in general though. And if you keep doing it, we’re going to attract some fairly odd looks when you get into your twenties.

But for now, make hay while the sun shines, but note that hugs are infinitely preferable.  Those bone crushing ones, where you stare soulfully into my eyes are the ones I like the best.

Well, my lovely one, what can I say that I haven’t already said?

You are a total joy to be with, despite being the noisiest, messiest, grossest creature I have ever met.

You are funny and kind and utterly and totally loveable to the point where it breaks my heart when I have to reprimand you for anything at all.

I love that you are so like your father still.  Sometimes I am sad about the fact that it took me so long to meet my soul mate, and I mourn how much of his life he spent without me, and how much of his growing up I missed, and then I look at you and realise that I am not missing anything at all, because you are him, but shorter.

And stickier.

And that is good, and I love you for showing me him, and I love you even more for being you so utterly fiercely and without compromise.

I love that you are so mysteriously other.  Your boyness is something I do not really understand, but I love it anyway, and I love it when you suddenly forget to be wild and fierce and rational and just melt into your feelings in that way that makes my heart sing, and makes me very hopeful that you are going to be just fine and you will not grow up to be a football hooligan after all.

Oscar, you were born in very special circumstances, and I waited for your coming for a very, very long time.  You have been travelling with me now for much longer than those six years, and when I first met you I knew how much we had already shared together, and what wonderful things we would share together in the future.

Sometimes it makes me very sad that you are my last baby, but if there had to be a last, I could not have done better than you.

I love you boy.

Happy birthday.

 

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