Three

The girls are tucked up in their beds, in a bouncy sea of airbeds, mattresses, and duvet sets featuring every known shade of pink.  Three teddy bear sleeping masks, the cause of much giggling when the girls tried them on earlier, are hanging up on the bedpost.

My daughter was 16 today. 

I swear there’s a sizzle in the air, from some of the moments burned into my memory today, like the ranch brand on the rump of a prize steer.

My daughter Skyping her cousin in Australia this morning, wringing her hands with excitement and pride that she was using her very own tablet computer.

Her first two emails on the device:

Hello Eve I got a tablet bit like a I pad I can email you more now. I can’t wait to see you later 

Hello manna [sic] it my birthday day eve and bethany coming later for going out for curry hut and film night and sleepover

Her arm, encased up the elbow in bangles, bracelets, and friendship bands, courtesy of her friend’s mum’s all you can grab trolley-dash raid in Claire’s Accessories.

My mum’s amazing Treasure Island birthday cake, complete with treasure chests made out of Milky Ways, and luminous blue jelly for the sea. And her low fat no-sugar fruit cake alternative for my girl. And the hours of work that went into them.

One Direction board game dares, including barking, moonwalking, robot dancing, roly polys, opera singing, and chicken impressions.

My girl, her PWS BFF (Prader-Willi Syndrome Best Friend Forever) and her AFC BB (After School Club Best Buddy) nattering on at the Indian restaurant; my daughter and her pal with the same unusual syndrome, her other mate with learning difficulties; all three of them together for the first time, talking to eachother, talking over eachother, all smiles.

Watching The Witches film, and being hula-hooped to a dizzying state by the circular conversations of: how witches aren’t real despite the characters insisting that they are; how if mice get squashed in a film, they’ve not really been squashed; and how Rowan Atkinson is an actor and is not actually Mr Bean.

The three amigas, jim-jammed up, squashed into the bathroom, cleaning their teeth. 

Oh yeah, and the guilt of thinking my seemingly malingering son’s ‘tummy-ache’ was rooted in jealousy. Said guilt kicked in like a mule at 3pm, when he was sick four times and had to retire to bed for the rest of the day.

I wouldn’t have changed a momentous moment. Well, apart from the sick bit.

Song is The Charlatans - Opportunity Three