Up!

Babies have been on my mind recently.

If my husband is reading this, don’t panic, and anyway... *makes a ‘snip!’ motion with a pair of imaginary scissors*... remember?

There have been three triggers for my chain of thought. A set of triplets, if you like.

Firstly, some lovely news: my cousin has just given birth to her third, beautiful, bouncing, baby boy. (Incidentally, why do we always say bouncing? I mean, it’s not a good thing if a baby bounces when it comes out, is it? Bouncing tends to come after dropping, and that’s kind of horrific, and law-suity, surely?)

Secondly, I recently marked the passing of one of my ‘days’ (as documented in previous blog post ‘Dates’) when I have a little think about days that should have been birthdays but turned out not to be.

Thirdly, and finally, Up! was on the telly the other evening.

It's hard to describe the mesmerising, startling, and almost brutal genius of the montage near the start of this kids’ animated film. With no dialogue, and in a series of short, simple scenes, it documents a couple’s marriage from their wedding day to the death of the wife. In the middle, the camera sweeps achingly across from a scene where the couple are decorating a nursery, to a dimly lit, almost silhouetted shot of them framed by the door of a hospital room as they are being spoken to by a doctor. The husband has his hands on his wife’s shoulders, trying to squeeze comfort into her. Without knowing the details, you know, in a second, that they will never have their longed-for child.

I sat and watched it with my kids. Having been in hospital rooms like that more times than I thought I could bear, just being able to write that sentence is enough.

Video is Nick Drake - Northern Sky

Troupe

A small troupe of girls with baby-soft feet left my house this morning.

Turns were taken in the foot-spa; a takeaway curry was consumed; Disney’s Enchanted was watched; a Hannah Montana DVD game was played; airbeds and sleeping blankets were squashed up together; pink pyjamas were worn; and whispers, giggles and serious amounts of chatting were heard until just before midnight.

My daughter's birthday sleepover was the kind of night I thought she would never have. It was the kind of night where I couldn’t stop smiling at her smile.

Video is Nina Simone - Feeling Good

Rollercoaster

When my daughter was four, we travelled, en masse, as a family, and we ‘did’ Eurodisney.

We were just like any other family. Sixteen of us. A smattering of surly teenagers, a handful of ecstatic toddlers, a couple of proud-as-punch grandparents, and a few harrassed parents.

My girl was wide-eyed, rosy-cheeked, and excited (See picture. She's the most wide-eyed one with the rosiest cheeks). She’d only been walking for four months, thanks to her weak muscle-tone. It was March, it was sunny and crisply cold, so she was wrapped up tight in her scarf and gloves and hat, riding along like royalty in her outsize buggy.

We’d smuggled in a healthy packed lunch for her, despite the signs warning that you weren’t allowed to bring your own food. (As we suspected, there weren’t any options that didn’t consist of lard-filled fast-food products and chips).

And we’d popped into the customer service hut, and secured a ‘disabled’ pass for her, which I immediately began referring to as ‘The Golden Ticket’ as it allowed us to jump the queue, enter rides through the exit gate, and get on board rides pretty much instantaneously. Oh yes. 

So she tried her first ever rollercoaster.

The lights went off, we rolled forward and plummeted what must only have been a few feet, but felt like a few hundred.

Next to me, in the pitch black, she was completely silent. I had no idea whether she was terrified or struck dumb with happiness.

It turned out to be the latter. As we burst through the doors and hit the sunshine, travelling up in a big arc, I saw her face in the light for the first time. She was smiling the widest smile I’d ever seen. It was the beginning of a proper love affair with rollercoasters and rides. 

But, through no fault of her own, it didn't last.

Three years ago, my daughter had spinal fusion surgery, which meant she no longer had to wear the rigid body casts she’d been encased in all her life. This was momentous, like a prisoner being unchained. We could hug her soft body instead of her plastic armour. She was free and it was a joy.

But it did have one downside. She's not allowed to ride a rollercoaster ever again.

Video is Everything But The Girl - Rollercoaster