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Annoyingly I didn’t die in the night from bleeding on the brain. Once again my wife wins an argument. One day I will show her.
It was Phoebe’s birthday party today, as three of us continue to battle this nasty little bug, that keeps on making you think it’s finished only to return again with a vengeance. I risked a couple of glasses of celebratory champagne, but regretted it in the afternoon when tiredness and weakness returned and climbing the stairs made me feel like a ninety year old man.
But I refuse to be beaten by this virus and we had a terrific day. All Phoebe’s grandparents made it as did many cousins and uncles and aunts, coming from near and far. There were cakes and balloons and a big party dress that Phoebe was reluctant to get into, but then loved swanning around in. There’s a terrific photo of her just after she’s woken up from her afternoon nap, pouting as if being two is the greatest burden known to humankind.
The transition from baby to little person is slow and you don’t spot it happening, but there’s no doubting that this little person is no longer a baby. We enter the terrible 2s and she’s still pretty much sweetness and light, but as always I wonder what adventures lie ahead for us. But good and bad, I am looking forward to it all.
I helped her blow out the candles on her cake. It’s a magical little moment. All the wishes I wished in my time (as if the cake wasn’t fulfilment enough of my desires). Yet helping my daughter, as she gave the lightest of blows beside me - the wishing was the wish.
Later she would play “What’s the time Mr Wolf?” with a couple of friends, only grasping the gist of what the game involved, but well enough to have fun waiting and then chasing. The girls played with the birthday balloons. A slightly older girl said, “Phoebe, are you trying to say you want me to keep this balloon?” Which Phoebe had given no indication of saying or wishing. But you had to admire this girl's pluck. So we let her keep the balloon anyway.
Phoebe didn’t want to go to bed, but I did. So I somehow bathed her and read her her story, before more or less passing out, hoping to wake early enough to get the work I still needed to do on AIOTM done. But also sort of not caring if I did or didn’t. We’d make it one way or the other. My priorities are different now. And weirdly it isn’t making my work suffer. It just means I have to make the most of the time I have got to write.
