celebrations

Forty before Forty

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When I was in school, I had a lot of resentment about being an August baby. I was the tiny one on the desk hidden in the corner. I never turned the next grand age during the school year. My friends were inevitably on holiday for my birthday party, and to top it off I had my 18th birthday and went straight to collect A-level results the next morning.

However this year I’m finally reaping the benefits of being the baby of the year! I’m in a WhatsApp group with several school friends, and couldn’t help feeling a little smug as we started wishing friends a happy 40th way back when I’d just turned 39. But after Christmas was finished it suddenly dawned on me that when we’ve welcomed the New Year in, lockdown party style on Thursday night and celebrating a grateful goodbye to 2020, my fortieth will be in this. very. year.

Well that was it. Suddenly I was wide eyed and sleepless and wondering what I should do with this momentous occasion. I’m ok with the fact in terms of age itself. I’ve had some busy years in adulthood, with more ups and downs than Chessington’s finest rollercoaster. So I feel I’ve earned a fortieth and the grey hairs that declare my wisdom. Or my age, anyway. If anything, I’m aware that ageing isn’t a right or a privilege, it’s a gift that not everyone gets, and for that, I’m okay to welcome my next decade in.

Having said that, whilst the storms blew outside I was lying staring into the dark slightly panicked, pondering what I can still achieve whilst I’m still in my 30’s. I’ve spent the best part of 15 years changing nappies and gaining a chronic neck injury from my poor baby-feeding posture combined with the bedtime hand holding of unsettled babies/unruly toddlers/anxious children. At the beginning of the March 2020 lockdown I was still taking a napping Micah in the pushchair on a walk, and somehow over the last 9 months he’s morphed into a several mile hiking, name-writing school-child. And that’s the part that unsettles me. It’s a new season of life and although I’m keenly aware I am still very much still needed, the question is who am I when I’m not hiding my insecurities behind a cute baby or propping my anxious legs up with a pushchair? (This was the first year I had to go Christmas shopping without a pushchair to carry my bags, and I missed it greatly. Next year I’m hoping to be allowed to shop with a pushchair wielding friend.) So given my vague end of thirties/end of toddler-life crisis, I decided I needed some goals. So I sat up and let the pounding rain on the window inspire a list.

Obviously despite a brand new year, the 2020 hangover is going to stay with us for a while, so my goals have to be achievable within a pandemic and the almost forgotten Brexit. No point aiming for the European city break I had planned – turns out my friend who suggested Blackpool would be exotic enough for the four of us might have been right after all.

So here it is, my Forty before Forty. The organiser in me kind of wishes I’d thought about this somewhere in November so I had forty weeks to achieve it, but there we are, I’ll just have to get a wriggle on. Some I’ll have to do more than one a week, some are one a month, some will be one off specials. Some are personal goals, some to do with others, some to do for others. And some are definitely going to be easier than others! (The backlog of photo books particularly fills me with dread!!!) But if I put it in writing it’s more likely to happen, so here it is:

1. Go for forty runs (a combination of illness and the dark evenings have halted my running for the last couple of months, so now seems a good time to get going again).

2. Start a new course (possibly cheating as I’m already enrolled, but I’m excited to get going)

3. Finish reading or read ten new books

4. Get a tattoo (I’ve got the design and the gift voucher…just need them to be allowed to open again)

5. Start writing a book

6. Use my DSLR to take forty special photos

7. Bake forty things for fun (could do with being allowed to feed them to other people too.)

8. Complete four years of photo books

9. Clean out four rooms

10. Learn a new piece on the piano

11. Start learning Welsh

12. Hike somewhere new

13. Put our little house on the market (and hopefully sell it!)

14. Write down forty prayers

15. Write forty thank you letters

16. Do a four week healthy eating plan

17. Have 8 date nights (going out would be a bonus!)

18. Have 8 family nights in

19. Try a new craft

20. Climb a hill to watch the sunrise

21. Climb a hill to watch the sunset

22. Visit a new beach

23. Start walking the Welsh coastal path

24. Go on a bike ride

25. Write a will (we said we’d do it when we went to matching panel for Micah 3.5 years ago…)

26. Save £X per month

27. Get a passport (Liam looked nervous at this one)

28. Book a holiday (should probably get him a passport too)

29. Write letters to my children

30. Donate forty things to a charity shop

31. Crochet and donate 20 premature baby hats for hospitals

32. Twin a toilet

33. Buy from four new Independent businesses (always happy for recommendations)

34. Pay for fourteen suspended coffees

35. Donate forty items to food bank

36. Plant four bee attracting plants

37. Send 8 surprise parcels

38. Research and support a local charity/cause (again, recommendations welcome)

39. Sponsor an international Cleft Palate surgery through Operation Smile

40. Raise £400 for charities (split between BHF and Barnados)

Writing this list was enjoyable and focussing, and really helped my mood going into the new year. I’m not normally one for New Years resolutions, but the thought having some goals and purposes in the middle of lockdown life certainly cheered me up! I highly recommend doing it, whatever age you’ll be turning in 2021. No doubt there’ll be curve balls and unexpected moments, but if I don’t manage to bake all the cakes I’ll be ok with that. It’s more a motivation to keep looking for ways to make every day count. I’ll keep you updated on my progress, and I’ll be setting up a justgiving account for the fundraiser. I’ve got until August 18th 2021, so please, join me for the ride!

‘So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.’ – Psalm 90:12

Messy Nativity

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Picture the scene:

Friday morning. Not the last day of term, but at the moment the last day has changed four times for three different schools, so who knows – it might be the last day?! It’s the last day in school for our kids, anyway.

Children number 4, 5 and 6 are running around with bed head hair, wet wipe washed jumpers, and still sporting milk moustaches-not for Movember, just from the morning.

Child 3 has had his coat on and been trying to leave the house since 7:45. It’s likely that his hair and teeth are unbrushed and he almost certainly doesn’t have fruit or a drink in his bag.

Children number 1 and 2 are self isolating. They might not be any more actually, I heard a rumour the dates had changed, but that’s something we’re not sure of because it was another one of several hundred emails that landed this week with fresh information. However, they’re still here, I think, ready to roll from bed to laptop in one smooth move.

Child number 3 is finally released in a state of semi order.

Child 1 appears, very excitedly showing me the trailer for the new Marvel film, whilst Child 3 bursts back through the door, having forgotten the teachers presents that he’d been holding for 20 minutes prior to leaving. Child 1 enthusiastically tries to show him the trailer-at least he’s likely to be interested.

At this point I interject. Child 3 is now late, I point out, and you and Child 2 cannot be doing school in your pyjamas. I locate the missing presents, wash three faces, send Child 3 back out of the house hoping he now won’t miss the bus, pack two bags, and am presented with a note that says, simply: £2.00. Child 5 has observed that I have learned to filter out the frequent voices invading my brain and has decided on a new strategy to ensure I don’t forget the payment for the decoration she crafted in school. Requests made in writing are surely likely to be noted?

And off we go, with packed bags and fruit pots, several coins paying for things that may break on the way home, and funny feelings in tummies because change is on the way, again.

After I got home after a typically chaotic Friday morning I found it there, under the tree where the wires tangle and the needles drop, lying between the manger and the angel, a sentimental ornament in broken pieces between the holy.

And when we’ve been around for long enough we know, don’t we? At some point over the years, the broken pieces of memories and ornaments get wrapped up in the tissue with the tales of Christmas past. The family feuds dull the twinkle of the lights, or the money worries marr the magic of Santa on his way. The anxiety of grief pain merges with the excitement of family time, and we reluctantly wonder, is this really the Most Wonderful Time of the Year?

In all honesty, there was a morning this week where I was teetering over the edge of sanity’s cliff, and I was googling for answers and emailing the experts and waiting for appointments and there’s another referral for another child and I was snappy and tired and I wondered who was going to refer me for help? It felt more like the bleak midwinter than joy to the world, and I empathised with my little old snowman under the tree, lying broken with the festivities happening around me.

So I wrote a list and I started cleaning the kitchen drawer that’s bugged me for months, and I put on a podcast while I worked. And there amidst the grime on my kitchen floor I was reminded of the Light that has come, and that no matter how dark the darkness, the Light is always brighter.

And I opened the package the postman delivered, the piece I’d ordered weeks ago. ‘In Him was Life, and that life was the Light of all mankind.’ And as I arranged the holly and flicked the switch it lit up the hallway and lit up my soul with reassurance and promise. The Life-bringing Light has stepped into the darkness of a stable and shone hope onto the brokenness around Him.

I’ve delivered newborn babies and laid them in a crib and seen the quiet reverence of a post delivery room. But this one was full of animal waste, not sterile gloves. And the teenage mother had only her supportive young husband as her midwife, and the grubby shepherds for first visitors, outcasts on the outskirts of a city bustling with those who knew their lineage and were writing their name to show they belonged. And this little family were beginning their uncertain journey into parenthood of the One who had made the star that hovered where he lay, lighting the darkness He was being birthed into.

Today an email dropped into my inbox and it held these words:

‘The story of Jesus is the story of God at street-level, raw and routine. Luke shows Jesus’ parents cycling through both amazement and confusion over their son and how best to lead him. We bear witness to the universality of parenting through the ages. First, they accidentally leave a party without him, “His parents didn’t miss him at first” (Luke 2:34.) Later, in verse 48, we eavesdrop as Jesus’ mom, wide-eyed and frantic, basically screams, “We were worried sick about you!”

They might be famous for their leading roles in the Greatest Story Told, but most of their life together was lived within the inhale and exhale of the mundane. Because of their service to God, palpably aware of their human limitations through it all, they would be, and are, blessed. This is meant for our comfort.

As we hold space for the wonder of Christmas in the midst of our own grunge, may we not become so enamored of the Story that we lose sight of this truth: God so loved the world that he sent his son to live. In a body. Among us.

With parents and everything.’ (Shannan Martin)

This week words I’ve listened to and words I’ve read in books and emails and conversation over a phone and laughter on a Zoom have cobbled together to remind me of where in the middle of a messy advent at the end of a year of broken pieces the wonder of Christmas can still be found. The Light that was born to parents who didn’t know what they were doing, into a world that was desperate for salvation from its own mess, He is the same Light that shines gently into my hurting heart and my anxious mind, my mistakes in my marriage and my cluelessness in parenting. The same Light that streams into the darkness of grief and loneliness, of fear and fury. The same Light that lifts me out of my low places and reminds me of all the goodness around me.

As I look at the lights twinkling on my Christmas tree, I’m reminded of the Light of the World who carried His wooden cross and hung on that tree to save the broken world. And even in the middle of the messiness, His Light still shines and His arms of love reach out to us.

So it’s by no small miracle we’ve made it through another Friday and the end of school runs in the most disjointed year there’s ever been, and children have settled into bed with a wide range of emotions, and I’m sitting here just grateful. For the ups and downs, for the answers to prayers, for the teachers who’ve cared, and even for the dark points that have showed how bright the Light is. Whatever Christmas looks like, nothing can steal the joy and hope of the newborn King.

‘The LORD is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The LORD is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?’ – Psalm 27:1

Day 100 – A last minute hospital visit and an impromptu lockdown party

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Yesterday Liam threw out a comment about having a 100 days of lockdown party. And the more I thought about it, the more I decided we’d go for it. Moods have been tricker since school has come up in conversation, and it’s been almost a month since we last had a birthday here, so it seemed a good a day as any to throw a party just for the sake of it.

It helped everything really. Schooling became making decorations for the party. Although I did sneak in a spider web piece of art too, just so we weren’t entirely off topic.

Unfortunately Megan has been having trouble with her braces for a couple of weeks, so I contacted the hospital yesterday, and was told to bring her in today. The tough part was that at age 14, she was considered old enough to go into the department on her own, including being given a mask for the waiting room, having a temperature check and answering all the Covid related questions, and going through the orthodontic procedure, all with me waiting outside.

So off we went, with some understandable anxieties. But the promise of a drive through McDonald’s on the way back, and picking up party food from the shop, all went a little way in helping. She was brilliant and brave and the braces are sorted again for now. And I was brave too, loitering in the alleyway outside.

We got back in time for lunch, and Theo enthusiastically decided our party would have a Numberjacks theme. Because ever since his nursery teacher started sharing episodes for the children to watch, he’s been obsessed. So I went with it, printed off some colouring pages and got them making ‘decorations’.

It did all get a bit hot today though, didn’t it? So we had a break from crafting to dish out ice lollies, and to fill up some vessels with water and have a little play with the hose to cool down.

I then got slightly engrossed with printing off a photo for every day of lockdown, 100 hundred days of memories. Toby created lockdown party bunting, and was so pleased with his success that he announced confidently that he might become a party planner.

It was good to have someone matching my enthusiasm for the cause.

Picnics are a mixed blessing, I find. There’s something delightful about laying a table of food that everyone will eat – obviously completely disregarding the salads. And the happiness of dining al fresco, always to be regarded as a treat in Wales. But then there’s the freedom for small people to run around like excited puppies, and refuse to sit and eat their food, and the frequent freak outs over ants because our entire garden is basically an ants nest.

Nevertheless, it was a fun evening. We looked at all the things we’ve done in the 100 days at home together and picked our favourite photos. It seems like such a long time in a lot of ways, to look at the change in seasons, the things we’d forgotten about in those early days in March. And then the things we are starting to have freedom to do again. The first time we went out more than once in a day! The first time the kids went in the car. The first walk with friends, the first McDonald’s.

And on Monday it will be the first time back to school for two of the children.

There have been many ups and downs over the last 100 days, and although I’ve written a lot, there’s obviously a lot that’s left unsaid too. In my first post on day 1 I shared a page from our kids Thought for the Day book, entitled ‘But God.’ It said that those two words show up over 3,000 times in the Bible – whenever something terrible was looming, ‘but God’! He comes and turns it around, the bringer of hope.

In all the last 100 days, the ill ones, the well ones, the rainy ones, the hot ones, the cranky ones, the loving ones, the jealous ones, the grateful ones, the grieving ones, the rejoicing ones, the claustrophobic ones, the hermit like ones, the anxious ones, the hopeful ones, in all of those days, God has showed up.

He’s been there in the gifts people have sent, in the messages and phone calls. In the Zooms and the virtual church and the music in the kitchen. In the Bible and in books and in the changing of the seasons. In the turning around of cranky days and the teary talks with one another. In the rainbows and the kindness and the sacrifices people have made. In the saying sorry and the forgiving hugs and the chance to always keep learning.

He’s always been here. And He’ll keep showing up in the days, weeks, months to come. Whether they’re easy days or hard days, He’ll be there. Because He loves His world and He loves His people, and it can look like it’s all falling apart – but God.

23 ‘Nevertheless, I am continually with you; you hold my right hand.
24 You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will receive me to glory.
25 Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.
26 My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.’ – Psalm 73:23-26

Birth days.

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Liam says my mum gives presents if someone sneezes. Actually, that’s not true, because loud sneezes are one of the things that make her really cross. But still, gifts are her love language, and I’m the same. So it was already an interesting dynamic that the man I met and love and married shares his birthday with the day St Valentine met his untimely end. Who gets gifts? Do we just throw out the commercial holiday made to bring more money to greedy supermarkets, or do I get him two gifts and he still sneaks out for flowers/chocolates/wine on February 13th (or 14th…or 15th)? In previous years, we’ve gone with the second option.

Until two years ago, when on this day, we were gifted another Valentine. I’m not willing to take responsibility for poor planning on this one. Granted, our family planning historically has looked like more family and less planning, but on this one we can’t take any credit. I’ve already talked about his arrival to our family on here, so suffice it to say that we had very little idea we’d be sharing our meal for £15 with a tiny newborn that year. But that day changed our family dynamic once again, with a new little one to be grateful for. But what do birthdays look like when you weren’t the one who gave birth?

The very idea of a birthday is to celebrate someone’s birth, their arrival into the world. And, like my mum, I’m definitely up for that. I love giving gifts, I love making that person feel special. And I’m also very nostalgic. I love remembering dates and days and talking memories. But the truth is, that for a lot of people, birthdays often bring a measure of pain in the memories too.

As a student midwife, I quickly learned that the movie idealised birth story, where the perfectly made-up mother with gentle devoted partner pops out a beautiful completely round-headed forceps-mark free baby who is immediately bundled into a pure white crocheted blanket is just that – a story. Birth involves pain. For many people, the pain of labour is put behind them, and they embrace life with a newborn. But I think for possibly the majority of people, there is history that comes with them into the labour room, and that will go home with them too.

In those rooms, I saw mothers who had waited for this day for many many years. They brought fear and anxiety into the delivery suite, and a brave hope that their dreams might at last come true. I saw mothers whose tears of joy were mingled with tears of loss – they’d lost their own mother, or father, a previous baby, or the father of their child, and the birth of a newborn was an intense reminder of that person they desperately wished was still a part of their life. I saw mothers afraid of who their partner was, but they were birthing his baby and clinging to the ideal that he would be who said he could be. I saw mothers who were children themselves, with their own mothers nervously stroking their hair. I saw mothers who hadn’t anticipated this baby, and didn’t know how they felt, how they would bond, if they even wanted to take it home. I saw mothers whose baby was born, and it wasn’t the perfect baby they had dreamed of, it would have needs they didn’t know if they could manage, and their world came crashing down. I saw mothers who knew the baby they would birth would never breathe. Their baby had left earth before it arrived, and those heartbreaking deliveries were sombre with intense, raw grief. I saw mothers whose baby was born far too soon, and they were afraid for its life. And I saw mothers whose baby would be whisked away, because it was too unsafe to send them home to the chaos and abuse and trauma there.

What I learned in those rooms, through my own experiences, and through being privileged to witness so many others, is that often the words ‘happy birthday’ are an oxymoron. Often a birth day is not pure joy and elation. Even in the births of my first three children, I carry buried pain alongside beautiful memories, whole stories in themselves. For my youngest three children, their birthdays are mingled with huge loss. Their loss of safety, of childhood innocence, of the only world they’d known, and the loss of the mother who gave birth to them. I can’t even imagine what goes through her mind on those days. And for me there’s sadness too – all the first moments missed, and all the pain I wish I could have saved them from. But this is life in a broken world, a whirling mess of joy and heartache, a see-sawing of hurt and healing, and with every birth delivered in pain there is promise of hope. A new life, a new story to be written. A new person gifted to this world for a reason, capable of being loved and held and dreamed for, and of loving and holding and dreaming.

I think it’s important to acknowledge the whole story, even if only to myself. I know I’m not alone in these days of mixed emotions. When we celebrate birthdays, I’m not pretending that all birth days are happy days. And I’m not trying to patch over a hard story. But I am celebrating this person. This gift of life. This day that marks another year on earth for them, another year of their unique personality and character and skills changing the world and the people around them because of their individual design. Despite the minor challenges of the two cake-making, double gift-buying, ‘where do I hang all the cards?’ issues related to the double birthday, I feel so honoured that we get to celebrate this little boy. People sometimes tell us that the children are lucky to have us. I don’t think lucky is the right word for such a start to life, but I feel incredibly privileged to have him, to be the one to wrap his presents, light his candles, and listen to him walking around the house still singing ‘happy birthday’ to himself, four days later.

As for Valentine’s Day, I still sneaked it in, with heart confetti on the dinner table and a chocolate for each child. I’m okay with letting it go for myself these days- I’m just hoping for double presents on my birthday to make up for it…