New OLDER Mummy

36. Ugh. What can I say... it's not 33 any more, and when I look back on the blog I have to say that I feel the 3 extra years. Do I look them?
There is, of course, nothing like having your soon-to-be 5-month-old son hold the bunch of flowers I got myself (we're a practical lot in this family, by necessity); it does make up for the great abundance of white crinkly hair and a strangely wrinkled tummy (although it goes without saying that I miss my firm tummy and am greatly puzzled and confused in my self-image by the white hair!).
It's a rather regular day. The weather is awful. After I drop Tara off at nursery, I head over to her school-to-be - not the school of my first choice, and I've still not gotten over the disappointment and anger at being assigned a school that is twice the distance than the one I'd asked for - and on the way back Leo and I get completely soaked as the baby wouldn't peacefully sleep in his pram but cry and cry and scream until I picked him up and wrapped him into my coat, against me, in the streaming rain.
So actually, it's not a regular but really a sub-standart day. It does not help that the lovely shoes I got myself on Jose's behalf do not fit and have to be sent back.


By evening I've recovered from the rain, age and white-hair induced rotten mood, and gratefully accept all the good wishes from my family - and they are plenty if we can go by the amount of times Tara has me relight the candle and blows it out again! She even stops eating her ice cream over it.

I'm taking stock, and find myself a lucky girl on the whole. For the record, and as a snapshot of me as much as of our family:
On my 36th birthday, I got rained on, felt largely angry but resigned about out future schooling perspectives, though a lot about buying a house and was pleased that the government waived stamp duty for first time buyers for houses under 250k as a special gift to me (naturally), and issued an invite to Tara's new 'best friend' and her mum, who I had previously only exchanged a total of one sentence with.
There are a lot of new beginnings in that. As my father put it: "The best is over, but a lot of good is still to come."

Tara. When you're turning 36, I hope I'll be invited to blow out your candles and make a wish for you, and maybe even make it true.
Leo, when you turn 36, I'll have a bunch of daffodils for you. Red and yellow just like mine, and the price tag will have been removed. I'll be 72 then, you might have to remind me.

Happy birthday, you old Mamma.