You were due to be born on 2 April. Scarily close to 1 April. But surely with babies, they never arrive when you think they will so very unlikely to be 1 April, right? But, like your sister three years before you, you decided on Easter Sunday that it was time to make a move, and several hours later you were born, like your sister, at home, on Easter Monday - yes, 1 April. Your father did suggest halfway through my labour that we should tell people you were born on 31 March or 2 April, but I wasn't having it. 1 April was your birthday, just one of those things.
Your birth was a bit eventful. You were predicted to be big, but nobody expected you to be 11lbs and get stuck on your way out. But you did and there were a few tense minutes during which I realised I had to do as I was told by the midwives. You arrived looking purple but crying straightaway, and half an hour later you had a more normal colour. It took me several weeks to realise that what had happened was a little frightening and not as straightforward a birth as your sister's had been. But you were here, 11lbs and all, and you were healthy, and that was all that mattered.
Ten years have flown by. I probably say this about you and your sister every year, but you've changed a lot this year. You finished primary school in July and started Middle School in September. You were so ready to start and although you were very tired to start off with, you took to that school like a duck to water. You are curious and love to learn, and the school has recognised your eagerness and knows exactly where to push you to get the best out of you. You are more grown up too, wanting your hair different (and I had to laugh the first time I went to school and noticed all the other boys in your year with exactly the same hair) and asking me not to buy clothes for you anymore if you aren't there with me. But in other ways you haven't changed much at all. You are still the little boy who loves cuddles and whose best Christmas present was the little TV monkey I knitted for you.
The older you get, the more you remind me of your grandfather, my dad, and your uncle, my brother, who much to my sadness doesn't want to be in our lives. I imagine you two together, talking about expensive, fast cars and sharing jokes as you have the same sense of humor. Your generous, caring side comes from your grandfather, and I sometimes wonder if you will end up doing something in the medical field, just like him. And very occasionally I will see bits of myself back in you, like when you told me the other day that there was no way you would want to act in front of the whole school as it was embarassing - you were happy helping out backstage.
But in most ways you are just you, always cheerful, full of energy, forever hungry, always ready with a little bit of general knowledge, still very easily pleased.
What a beautiful post! You are lucky to share such a great connection x
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