For the past eleven or so months you’ve been telling people, “I’m almost four!” and I suppose I have been the spoil-sport when I pipe up, “Not for a while yet, you’re not.”
Then, since Christmas, I’ve had to start admitting that, yes, it’s not far off now, is it? What would you like?
A Winnie the Pooh cake you replied formally, even though you have never, ever expressed an interest in any of his or his friends’ stories. So last night your father took you to the supermarket to pick a rice paper cake-top with Winnie the Pooh (RRP $3.something) but they had run out. So you picked a fairies one instead, without being worried in the slightest.
[Yes, I cheated on the cake. I am not, this year, going to make a butter frosting extravaganza that needs more buttressing than St. Pauls Cathedral and will take five years off my life due to stress. I’d say sorry, but I’m not really. Maybe next year.]
[Anyway, since as you’ve been to so many birthday parties this month, they’ve all started to merge into one sugared whole, like toffee; you’ve tasted from the party food buffet. You’re ready to move on, aren’t you? Go back to normal? Please say you are.]
Yours is one of the last amongst your circle of friends, but you’ve handled it marvellously; never once being jealous of their loot, you’re just happy to sit back and watch them tear open the wrapping, clapping happily as they do.
What socks me these days is your tendency to prefix your sentences with, “Back when I was a little girl…” and you will then recall some trivial detail with absolute accuracy. For example, you remember what outfit you wore at last year’s party. You remember what shoes you wore on the airplane when we took a holiday eighteen months ago. I’m sure I’d be dazzled what your brain is capable or thinking, or comprehending at this stage in your life.
So it is with some regret that I have to agree with you when tell me solemnly that you are no longer a very little girl.
No, you’re not.
Four years old. Four years today since I survived possibly the most farcical (in a funny way) birth ever; a birth story which was actually published because it’s not everyday your nether regions are on display to a bunch of nosy window washers who can’t take a hint to MOVE ON! even when your midwife starts to sticky-tape the curtains to the walls to give you some privacy.
But never mind that. Only mind this:
Happy Birthday, my love.
