Baby, you're a firework.

My Josie is 9. My babiest girl, my little JosieJo. 9 years old.

I’m a long way past making their birthdays about their births. Everything that once surrounded this day for me is long gone in a stream of best birthdays ever and the amazing girl who has blossomed in front of us this last year.

I do look at her sometimes though, the girl I finally cracked parenting with, the one I finally felt I did a good job with – and I’m a little amazed. She is an etching of a journey for me. She’s the girl who doesn’t remember the business in the house or the too busy mummy and the one most altered and shaped by the births of her brothers. And now, this last year of single figures will end the baby Josie; she is so close to disappearing into a lean girl with her own life and thoughts.

Josie. Singular – solitary – sensitive – sassy – serious.

But still very much a lover of penguins.