Miss Poppet

So here I sit on my lovely comfortable new sofa from Ikea & I think my god, tomorrow is February 2nd & my son, my baby, is going to be one.

It’s hard for me to imagine that I have a one year old son. Its hard to think that a year has passed already! My baby has done so much this year. He has smiled, he has not one but nine teeth, his father has tought him to climb the stairs (we have now invested in a stair gate), he has learnt to crawl, he stands up. He laughs his amazing infectious laugh. He sings to us. He waves goodbye. He smiles his dazzling beautiful smile. He calls us mam & dada.

He has brought so much to us. He is truly amazing. He is my heart. I love my son so much.

It feels like he has always been here. It is sometimes hard to imagine life without him because Boy Slumber & Fin are all that are truly important. What I thought was important, painting the town red, having drinks with friends, the latest movie/book/cd, those lovely shoes,  is nothing compared to how important my son & partner are to me. Life changes so much. To people who are ahead of me on this journey will remember how they thought this once & yet how clear it is that family would be so important. And people who have not yet met their love or started a family will not yet appreciate the importance of my son & my darling partner to me.

Anywho, I am so thrilled by the year I have had with Boy Slumber & my darling Fin. I can’t believe how quickly the year has gone & I am so excited about our future together. Our amazing journey together as a family.

And my darling son, sleep well tonight because tonight is your last night as ‘zero’, tomorrow morning you will be one & we will celebrate your birthday together, you me & dada. Our little family.

Sleep well baby & I will see you in the morning to wish you Happy Birthday, the first of many.

It appears that the wonderful Captain Fintastic also has a flaw. Crockery. Glass. Anything delicate. I don’t mix well with wood (I have been doing well recently though) & Captain Fintastic has pottery.

When Boy Slumber was born my darling partner pottered over to Scotland for  a family wedding. As it was 2 weeks after I gave birth to Boy Slumber we stayed with my parents where I got my first nights sleep, 2 weeks & I had already forgotten what a full nights sleep was!

Anywho, Captain Fintastic’s lovely mum brought home this cute mug for me as I could not travel to Scotland. And what happens. Fin happens.

I suppose it makes us equal, I broke his wooden bowl & he smashed my cup. It almost sounds a bit like Florence & The Machine’s song Kiss With A Fist – ‘You smashed a plate over my head & I set fire to our bed’. Although hopefully not ever that extreme, lets stick with wooden bowls & cups

Everybody I know tells me that they will remember 2009 as being a year of hardship. The year of ‘The Recession’. And yes they will be correct, 2009 is the year of the recession. A year where many people lost their jobs, lost their homes, lost everything.

However, I will remember 2009 as the year of Ruairí. He was born February 2nd 2009 & for this I will love 2009 for the rest of my days.

Yes I will remember the difficulty of 2009 but that memory will be faint compared to my memories of Ruairí’s first year. The year where I met my first child. The year that I turned into a machine (midnight feeds, every 3 hours, so hard!). The year that I thought Ruairí smiled at me only to realise that it was wind. That when I say ‘ta ta’ he hands me his soother. His first tooth, his second tooth, third, fourth fifth right up to his ninth tooth. His first roll, to be followed in later months by crawls. His first sounds ‘baba, dada & mama’. But mostly his amazing smile, his hugs & his laughter.

2009 was hard but 2009 was beautiful, memorable & will forever be close to my heart.

On the eve 2010 it snowed, the snow covered everything, I think our bamboo looked particularly appealing in the snow. It created a pure, clean blanket of snow. We poured into our streets & had snowfights with our neighbours, well Fin did. I slipped & knocked myself unconcious moments previous. But I like to think that this snow will cover the old to make way for the new.

New friends, new adventures & more new experiences with our beautiful son.

Back in January 2007, Fin brought me on a lil holiday for my birthday to Belfast. It was lovely & exciting. So much fun. Mainly because it was just the 2 of us pottering around Belfast, enjoying being together & doing what we wanted to do…

One of my favourite places in Belfast is the Botanical Gardens. And here is my snappy goodness of the gardens…

So I am sitting here in my leaba (Irish for bed) listening to John Legend. What a man. What a musician.

I sit here cross legged underneath my fairy lights that shine above my head & I am just happy. It is just one of those nights where you can sit in bed alone listen to some amazing music, have a think over life, relax and be absolutely content.

Listening to his music, his lyrics make me think of so much. Mainly my partner. And yes everyone who knows me know that I am in no way mushy, but his lyrics make me think of him & how I love him. And yes my friends I am still me, I just blame the music & John Legend for bringing emotions to the surface.

[     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LY6yIn77IcY&feature=related    ]

What a lovely evening.

DO YOU KNOW THIS FLOWER?

I am desperately trying to find out what the heck this flower is?! It is soooooo pretty & lovely. And…. I want it! I want it in my garden.

But I have no idea whatsoever as to its name, what conditions it needs to survive or where I can buy it!

If ever you should find out please… put me out of my misery & let me know… Or better still…. Send me one!

Okay, so for Boy Slumber’s Welcoming Ceremony I had no idea whatsoever what to do other than read poems. EEEK! Can’t just read two poems and go ‘thanks very much, till next time chaps’. So what to do?!

Well, then I heard about this idea. A BOOK! All his family & our friends can write little notes, hints on life, funny jokes, any wisdom they wish to give to him. I think this is a lovely idea. Anyone and everyone can write something to him that he can have forever.

So with this wonderful idea came the realisation that his book needs to be amazing. And everyone knows that amazing is hard to come by. Luckily a friend tells me of Phoenix Copper Art.

Can I just say… wow!

His work is amazing. And beautiful. And Will is so nice, friendly & helpful.

So I recommend anyone looking for a beautiful book visit Phoenix Copper Art because his work is amazing.

Okay, okay. I know since my wonderful partner built us a patio with our family our garden has so naturally come together. Our flower bed just naturally shaped itself.
And now that I have a flower bed I officially have gone MAD buying flowers for our garden.
I have even gone mad buying flowers that aren’t even going into the flowerbed. See above pic! I am ridiculous. I must impose some sort of restriction order on myself in relation to garden centres.
Is there a Flowers Shopaholic Anonymous?
But in fairness my wonderful Mr Man did get me this cute little pot for my cute little flowers. Ah my partner in crime!

So we have decided not to have Boy Slumber christened because while I am spiritual & Fin is atheist neither of us consider ourselves religious. So we, well I, found out about baby naming ceremonies also known as welcoming ceremonies. And thought ‘we should do that!’.

While I love the idea & fact that we are celebrating having our son in our lives little did I think of the effort involved in organizing it. I have spent hours trawling the interweb looking for templates, ideas, suggestions or anything to do for the ceremony as there is no pre-organised method as with a religious ceremony. A fleeting thought did cross my mind about the easiness of just being christened.

But success! I have come across different ideas- planting of a tree, journal for friends & family to write their own message to Boy Slumber so he can always have it to read, lighting of a candle, poems that family can read, music. Anything we want.

So far I think my favourite poem is from Kahil Gibran. I always loved ‘The Prophet’. I think it adds to why I love his poem on children, ‘Your Children Are Not Your Children’.

So I’m playing with Boy Slumber & then I get this phone call from the Health Nurse saying I’m to bring him in for his 3 month evaluation. (On a seperate note EEEK! What if he fails, can you fail? And they try run away with him, I know crazy thoughts)