I’m borrowing babies. I’m quite enjoying borrowing babies and, i hasten to add, i’m doing it quite legally and with the blessing of their mothers. I wouldn’t want anyone thinking i’ve started leaving empty prams anywhere or anything dreadful like that.
However, i have an excellent array of small people around me currently, all conveniently girls, which is even better 🙂 Yesterday i took Baby-Flower out with me, while leaving my girls behind with Mummy-Flower and paraded around the inner city with her for a while while her mother did my work for me. This was excellent in many ways, not least that she appeared to quite like me and we did lots of bonding over kisses, raspberry blowing and silly talk – but also because it didn’t occur to me to take a sling or pushchair with me and i’d forgotten that you can’t put tiny 15lb 9 months old down on the floor in a bank when they don’t belong to you and are dressed in cleaner clothes than any of your own children have seen in about 3 years. So i then looked foolish while attempting to juggle baby, cheques, paying in slips and a pen and evenutally had to admit defeat and get the clerk to do it. So that reminded me of how cute babies are when asleep but how many extra arms, or gadgets, you need when they aren’t. bargain.
Today i’ve been borrowing Madison; we popped over to see Kate, my children disappeared in a flurry of “other peoples toys” and i sat guard over a fast asleep Madison who didn’t need me but is so cute that i just have to look at her and bend lots of thoughts towards her staying just as gorgeous and healthy as she is now. Summer rather adorably demanded a cuddle from me too, perhaps the first time she has ever acknowledged me as an acceptable person and communicated a want to me, so that was also great. But really, for me, Madison stole the show; so pink, so perfect, so sleepy and babylike. And agreeably woke up in the end and let me play babies too; change her, cuddle her, snuggle her.
It kind of helps that she was conceived just as i stopped being pregnant and after being waited for for so long, a little (slightly insane and mostly controlled by happy pills) bit of me feels like maybe one little souled hopped on to somewhere else where i could still love it. I’m sure Kate knows i feel like that and i know she won’t mind; she’s a kind lady. it takes a very, very kind person to have been friends with me for all this time, still enjoying being my friend when i was wrapped up in having babies that she couldn’t have. I admire her so much. Even now, when finally she has just exactly what she wants, when she has the happy ending she deseved and i’ll never get to be properly happy again, she’s giving me back way more than i could ever ask. She really is a remarkable friend. And such a great mum, such an inspiration.
Kate is the epitome of doing the best you can do even when the best is absolutely bloody, sh*ttily awful. if it wasn’t for her, for her grit your teeth and keep walking determination that i’ve admired so much over the last 8 years, i wouldn’t be here at all, i don’t think. We can all only be what we can be, but when i see the grace and dignity that Kate has faced the darkest, most unlucky 8 years with, loving her daughter, doing her absolute best by, fighting for her, enjoying her, living for her and never once complaining that she might never get even a glimmer of another chance, i can only thank my lucky stars for the accident of fate that meant she walked into my life.
Sarah says
Hi
I am new to your blog. I am enjoying reading it but wondered why you had written this – i’ll never get to be properly happy again. You seem to have everything – a loving husband, four beautiful daughters, your own business and homeschooling your children.
I will visit your blog again as I am just begiining my homeschooling journey.
site admin says
There are a lot of answers to that, none of which i can really blog. Suffice it to say it has been a difficult year and that even having everything can be a mixed blessing at times, especially if you are a person who struggles with depression and knows exactly how happy you should be.
Thanks for visiting, i look forward to your return 🙂
Lucy says
I know what Allie is saying. I’ve often wondered how it is that the women in the world who have appeared to have lost and suffered the most are the ones who seem the most content. Maybe its something waiting for you further down the path. Sounds like Kate is a truely wonderful person.
Michelle says
I am content, but I don’t think I’ll ever be “properly happy” again either. I think I was “properly happy” from February 1992 up to about June 1998. Now, 9 years on (time passes scarily quickly) and with my life and my family the way I want it to be and how I want to live given what I can and can’t have, I am content with what I have – but that “properly happy”-everything-is-the-way-I-want-it-inner-joy feeling, I will never experience again.
Allie says
Excuse the butting in. I just wanted to say that, for me, being ‘properly happy’ demands that I have been ‘properly sad.’ I wouldn’t presume to tell you how to feel – you’re entitled to the space to express whatever you feel – but you know that.
I just think that ‘proper’ happiness is not an unsullied state that is forever lost in times of pain. It is there, like a seed in winter, waiting. That’s been my experience so far in life. In the little miracles of everyday life, happiness can suddenly bloom again. Hang on in there.
site admin says
I’m sure i’ll be happy, i am content, but “proper happy”, i don’t know. I think i’ll always have a bit of a haze between me and “proper happy” and that won’t allow me to see things without memories that will just be too difficult to properly ignore. Just about everything dear to me has been touched and altered by the last year. I just don’t think that can be overcome 🙁
But content, yes. And joyful about things that make the people i love happy, yes 🙂
Greer says
xxx
Amanda says
Kate sounds like such a wonderful person and friend :0)
Greer says
You sent me a parcel!!!!!
site admin says
I did – hope you can make use of some of it 🙂
Gill says
I love the way you write about Kate here. Two lucky friends 😀