Seven

She's seven! Amazing. I know other kids are seven too, but somehow I feel like she's the only person to ever be seven, ha ha!

She is more like 27 actually, she is as sharp as a tack and will always have a well prepared rational argument to reel off to me about how she won't get her school uniform on in the morning or other mundane activity.

She is hypersensitive yet totally grounded. She is spontaneous yet practical. She is wise beyond her years and curious about everything...she is empathetic and will fit herself into various social situations like a pro.

I am completely biased of course, I'm her mum and it's her birthday! She's beautiful and I'm so lucky to have her in my life, even though she makes everything ten times more difficult than it needs to be, I know she will always be there for me, to cheer me up or give me a hug, or a red wine and coriander cocktail (don't ask).

I am pleased if she does well at school academically, of course, but maybe this is the same for other parents too...but I'm much more proud of the way she behaves towards others.

I'll tell you a little story...

One day she and her little brother were making a lovely sandcastle on our local beach whilst I watched. They spent a long time collecting beach treasures to decorate it and she wanted me to take a photo of it when it was finished.

A little boy (probably about four years old) walked straight up to the sandcastle and stamped on it.

He just walked off.

They sighed...and then started to rebuild the sandcastle again, when again the boy walked up and destroyed their castle, and walked off.

I was watching and looking around for the parent, as I never want to tell off someone else's kid, that's seriously awkward.

Then, the boy came back again, and lifted his foot, about to stamp on the castle a third time, and I went to run across thinking 'Crikey, world war three is about to kick off!'.

When Pehr, very calmly and in such a warm voice, looked up and said to the boy 'Would you like to help us?'. 

Of course, he nodded and they spent a good hour all building the sandcastle together, chatting and consulting each other what should go where.

I think I cried a bit that day on the beach, and I learnt a lot from her.

One day, when she's in her 20s or 30s (I will probably have deleted this whole blog long before then, but anyway) Pehr, if you're reading this, I can't tell you how proud I was of you on the beach that day.

I think she has finally accepted that I will never make the pink sparkly unicorn cake that she wants, she sees me roll my eyeballs at the mention of it. However, she really loved her cake this year. She loved the 24ct gold blackberries, and she loved watching me drip that nectarine syrup all over the cake. She was really excited to see it finished and kept hugging me.

Luckily it tasted pretty good too! 

Phew.

She had another little party with some friends at the cinema and presents on her birthday already, but I did wrap up a Fisherprice Campervan that I won on ebay for them to open. I knew they would fight over it because it has wheels, but I like that it comes apart so they can play with different parts each.

We had a tea party which was really lovely because Leify had his friend over too (He hasn't got many friends his own age, but he made a good friend at his pre-school since he joined).

The next day we invited some more friends over to help consume the rest of this huge cake, and Pehr wanted to light all the candles again and sing happy birthday etc...so in the end she had four birthday parties...and why not?