My baby is now a 4 year old. I won’t lie, I had a few wobbly moments the night before his birthday - putting up bunting, wrapping presents, decorating his birthday cake and writing his card. Three year olds are still in the Toddler world, at 4 you’re a boy. As the youngest of our family, his firsts are our lasts. And the realisation of that can catch you out. Or it certainly did to me.
Not that anything has changed now his 4. He still has me wrapped around his little finger; at the table he will get me to help as much as possible with his food and exploit any opportunity he can to crawl on my lap. Just today doing the Easter trail in town he managed to work his way up for a “huggle buggle” on a number of different occasions. And when I think back to the Monday morning of his birthday, we found him (fairly uncharacteristically these days) in our bed when we woke, having joined us for a snuggle at some point in the wee hours.
Having dragged out his birthday good and proper (party two weeks before, school celebration a week before, day trip with friends on the actual day and birthday trip to the theatre the week after) we are finally done. With so much going on I didn’t have any confidence at all in him knowing when the actual day had come but he proved me wrong; waking up on the Monday morning the very first thing to come out his mouth was “Am I four now?” Don’t be too impressed though, he spent the rest of the day informing us his birthday was on Friday - whether he meant this Friday or last Friday Albug and I never managed to work out!
On the actual day Daddy was at work so after singing him “happy birthday” and letting him blow out the candles on his hastily made Leo cake at the breakfast table, it was chopped up, added to the picnic bag and we headed off to one of my favourite places with young children: Moors Valley. There we met his and Albug’s friends (and their mum’s so I could have good chat time). We played in the play park, went on the play trail, ride the train and ate ice cream. We spent from 10am to 4pm outside. It was perfect. (Though I’m not sure Percy agrees as it meant he missed out on at least 4 hours of his normal quality nap time.)
And even then, after a party, school celebration and fun day out the birthday extravaganza of Smalley turning 4 still weren’t complete; on Saturday we boarded the train, headed to London and watched Julia Donaldson (plus husband, sister and two very talented actors) perform The Witch, the Warthog and The Gruffalo. It was so brilliantly done. Just amazing. The boys sat transfixed throughout as they watched their bedtime story classics come to life on the stage with humour, energy, colour and music.
For me, it was meeting a hero. Julia Donaldson’s writing skill and imagination blow me away. I hadn’t really appreciated how hard it can be to read aloud - reading Harry Potter to Alby at bedtime takes serious brain power or I just stumble over the words and find the sentences running away from me. Julia Donalson’s gentle rhymes roll off the tongue, they support great bedtime even on the most exhausted evenings.
After the show she was signing books. We queued in the drizzle, bought The Cook and The King (a story I wasn’t aware of but which was preformed so hilariously it’s my new favourite) plus a wartime play she’s written and got two minutes to talk at her, me babbling whilst she, utterly exhausted drank her much needed tea.
Back home on the train, the 4th birthday celebrations finally drew to a close. I know that I’ll never be able to stop time, but at least I get the chance every now and then to really make the most of it.
