Two.

Our second son is 2.

I’d have given a lot to know he was going to make it to 2, at this moment 2 years ago. Just after Max left the hospital, the doctors came to take him to scbu, having found the jaundice that would plague him for 12 weeks already in his blood. And I couldn’t follow him; my body couldn’t, even if my mind could have crossed the threshold. I just sobbed at the nurse that I couldn’t lose him too, that I just couldn’t manage if he died.

Oh the irony that an earlier version of my own mothering journey would have been quite glad of the rest, blithely ignorant that scbu cannot always fix everything.

But this time, that day, the boy came back, neatly attached to the light blanket that let me keep him in my arms through jaundice therapy.

And here he still is.

It’s impossible to explain how he change all ours lives. Restarted them really. Just lately the girls have touched upon the trauma of the time I was pregnant with him, how hard it was for all of us. I could never do it again. Not even if he had gone away.

But he didn’t. He stayed. And he is worth everything about his own journey and he is all about himself.

Which is just as it should be.

Happy birthday little boy. Thank you for coming. And staying.