Happy Birthday M-Girl!

Six years ago today, my eldest daughter Madeleine came into the world.  She came out screaming and cross, and has been fairly vocal ever since.  As a baby, she was about as collicky as they came, howling the house down for five or six hours a day, but suddenly at about three months she turned into a happy baby who slept 12 hours a night.  She was always high maintenance, and refused to countenance anything as dull as being propped in front on the TV with Baby Einstein on, but she was as sweet and cute as could be, and we just adored her. 

We had all sorts of strange names for her – M-Girl, BubbaOne, Madda-One, Baby Girl,and sometimes Madeleine. At six months she was sitting up unaided, but seemed uninterested in crawling until 11 and a half months.  Six weeks later she got up and walked, and barely sat down again until she was about five.  She was incredibly brave as a toddler, and took on any playground equipment she could find.  She swung on flying foxes and climbed towering jungle gyms that boys twice her age were only starting to conquer.  

Reading her a book was a hopeless task, she was so full of energy and activity that no sooner had she handed you a book and climbed up on to your lap, than she was down and off again, bringing more and more books to add to the teetering pile.  She could transfer the entire contents of her bookshelf to the living room without hearing more than the first word of any of them.  

Eventually, when she was nearly two and a half and I was eight months pregnant with her younger sister, I convinced her to lie down at 4pm each day and watch an episode of Spongebob Squarepants, and her love affair with the little yellow sea creature was born.  Now we have to crowbar her off the sofa at times, and her tastes have grown to include Ben 10 (a pre-teen superhero, I think) and even programmes that are not cartoons.  She still loves Spongebob though (as do I).

Lucia arrived and she was besotted.  She adored her sister and couldn’t do enough for her.  She lay down with her at tummy time, handed her toys, ran to get things for mummy when Lulu was being fed, and has been her constant companion ever since.  Two years later, when Lulu joined Madeleine at pre-school she couldn’t have been more delighted, and kept a watchful eye on her.  

By then, although she had an incredibly strong mind of her own and seemingly limitless confidence, she had also developed into a real mother hen, which she still is today, and took on each new child at pre-school, hovering nearby to look after them.  When friends of mine with smaller children came to visit, Madeleine instantly adopted the role of carer, leading them around and solicitously asking if they were hungry, and could she get them some water?

She was beside herself with excitement at starting school, and knew half the class from pre-school.   She amazed the neighbourhood by joining the local walking school bus in her second week of school.  Of course, the same traits that were evident at birth still existed – we were called before the teacher a few weeks later to discuss a ” serious incident” – our sweet little five year old had got frustrated with not getting her way, and had punched someone.  Thoroughly chastened, we consoled ourselves with the fact that at least it was an older boy, not someone smaller than her

Her talking skills continued to develop apace.  As part of an assessment by her first teacher, she was asked to make up a story  with limited prompting from the teacher to test her imagination and vocabulary and her ability to talk.   Some children apparently have difficulty speaking for more than a minute or so.  After at least ten minutes, Miss Brown had to ask her to please, please stop speaking.  There was evidently no limit to the amount of talking that our Madeleine could do.  

At six years old she is a long, lean streak of incredibly energetic girl.  She is either going at 100 mph or is flat out recovering.  She tells us how unfair we are to not let her drive or choose her own activities, wants to move out of home one day but take Lucia with her, be an astronaut, a pirate, and a doctor  and if I let her would have her hair cut as short as her dad’s.  She’s been a daddy’s girl since she was born but if I go in to her room in the dead of night to pull up her sheets and she wakes up, she instantly pulls me into a hug and whispers “I love you” into my ear.  

Happy Birthday Madeleine, we can’t wait to see what you do next.