Autumn and Mole turns three

The nights are drawing in, there is a new chill in the air, the garden is chopped and raked, the winter wardrobe is about to come out, and we’re lighting fires. Ah I love Autumn.

It is also Mole’s birthday. We had the big party on Saturday, in the village hall, complete with bouncy castle and soft play package, bunting, fairy lights and tipi’s, not forgetting the mermaid cake. I remember when a birthday party involved a few friends round for jelly and ice cream. Maybe next year.

On the morning of the said party, Mole is acting like the whiniest most annoying brat in the world. She looks nonplussed when presented with the spectacular mermaid cake, while Hedgehog toddles up to take a handful of icing. Later, walking up stairs on the way to her nap she says “Ah that was a lovely birthday party”. That is all I needed. It makes the hall hire, bouncy castle hire and cake fee all worthwhile.

In the afternoon we have present opening. The over-riding favourites are two prams, which swiftly get taken up stairs to live in her bedroom, or ‘my palace’ as she calls it now, probably never to see the light of day again and guarded jealously from Hedgehog. She hoards things in her bedroom like a squirrel. The following day, I get a new bookcase for her bedroom, just to deal with the mounting pile of stuff that she insists in heaping on her floor.

The real birthday is today, which is much more relaxed, and interestingly, when not bombarded with sugary food and lots of presents, she does not turn into a whiney brat. I’m having a breakthrough here. Stuff is not necessary, they only care about being with you. So today, I charted what we did against the day she was born three years ago.

At 8am labour started at home in our flat, exactly five minutes after Mr M&H had left for work. By 9am I knew it was the real thing and texted Mr M&H to tell him, who had just arrived at work forty miles away, only to do a U turn. Mr M&H leaves for work around the same time today, and by 9.30am Mole, Hedgehog and I are at the swimming pool. We do races up and down the toddler pool together, Mole kicking her legs and Hedgehog clinging to me like a limpet, unsure of the water and blinking to get the splash out of her eyes.

By 11am we were riding down to St Thomas’s hospital via Southwark and Waterloo in the taxi, moaning through contractions and clenching teeth over every speed bump, expressing outrage at Mr M&H for forgetting to bring the camera. Today we are in the café after our swim, Mole and Hedgehog having juice and raisins while I have coffee and a brownie, which of course gets shared, Mole grinning at me with her cappuccino moustache.

After this we go to the swings, where it immediately pours down with rain so we take shelter under the trees. Hedgehog spots a squirrel and gets very excited. I explain to Mole what conkers are while we wait for the rain to stop. In hospital, I was being wheel chaired to the birthing unit and met my amazing midwife and trainee doctor, who was to witness her first birth. I sat on the bed and sucked on my entonox, and then moved to the birthing pool.

At 1pm we head home for nap time and general collapse. They both go down without a hitch and I have two hours of silence in which to do some laptop work, text friends, do laundry, washing up and order a food delivery. At around this time I was asking for an epidural, having discovered the birthing pool didn’t do sh*t. The midwife was playing for time, and then announced that it was too late for an epidural. It was the most desperate moment of my life.

At around 4pm Mole and Hedgehog wake up, I change Hedgehog’s very dirty nappy and have cuddles with her while Mole takes herself to the toilet. I hurridly get lunch for them which Hedgehog devours, while Mole watches ‘Noggin the Nog’ on youtube. I fix dinner in the slow cooker and then watch ‘Ben and Holly’ with Mole, while Hedgehog runs back and forth with books for me to read to her. In hospital I was leaning over the bed, giving parliament across the river a moonie, and starting to push.

At around 5pm we go out to a place called ‘Ye Olde Watermill’ which is on the way to Mr M&H’s work, to have a walk about before fetching him. Mole holds Hedgehog’s hand as they toddle round together, they get excited about fish in the stream, and teddy bears in a shop window. Mole was born at 5.22pm, with me on all fours on a crash mat, holding onto the metal bars of the bed.

At 6pm we meet Mr M&H from work and come home to our slow cooker dinner, before putting Mole and Hedgehog to bed. I persuade Mole to fold her prams away so they don’t take up half her floor space, and make a bed for her ‘babies’ on the book shelf. It’s progress for tidy bedrooms everywhere. In hospital, after we’d had a placenta show and tell from the midwife, a clean-up and a shower, I listened to Mole sleeping in her hospital trolley and watched the sunset over the Thames, relieved and happy.

And so she is three. She is so grown up already. Walking and talking and going to pre-school in January. I love watching her grow up, but must she do it so quickly? Sniff.