Just minutes ago.....
It would be cliché indeed to make a fuss of my baby’s birthday; write a glowing tribute to the tumultuous teen and then struggle to find time to celebrate my darling in between girl. Way to help nurture a case of middle child syndrome ;)
Belated happy birthday greetings to Miss Amy - our dog-whisperer and rescuer; my darling Queen of Spots; the anti-girly-girl; sports junkie; fussy-little-sh…; "most determined on the netball court 2008"; horse-canterer; - my small-statured but big spirited hero and the one who conjures up my very fiercest mother-tiger instinct. Flanked by her boisterous sisters of Amazonian proportions on either side, Amy has always had an instinct for choosing not to compete, but instead carving out her own niche, her own path.
By the tender age of 2 1/2 , she was able to take a good look at her older sister (who was stereotypically pink personified at the time) and set her sights at the opposite end of the spectrum. She simply WAS Woody the Cowboy from Toy Story for about 18 months after that. It all started when she rejected Kate’s fairy costume for a party coming up with a “but I want to be a cowboy Mummy”. When I replied “ok, I can find a cowgirl costume for you”, I was gobsmacked at her utter disgust – how is a toddler capable of such derision?! “NOT a cowgirl Mum – a cowboy, Woody the Cowboy” and that costume was in one of 3 places from them on – on her back, in the washing machine or on the drying rack with my little blonde cowboy checking on it hopefully every 20 minutes or so…
Her passions turned to superheroes by the time she reached 4/5 – batman, spiderman etc with a concurrent fondness for dinosaurs on the side. I remember making her a castle birthday cake with superheroes perched all over and dinosaurs in the moat. I will never forget her rapt expression when she saw it, she was in heaven! I had always done the preparatory party chat with her – “if someone gives you a Barbie or a girly present, it’s important to be polite and say thank you because they did their best. Not everyone knows you and what you like”. She opened a present from a friend and came hurtling excitedly towards me across the room, yelling at the top of her voice “LOOK MUM – Imogen REALLY knows me, she REALLY knows me!” with a beloved pair of spiderman pjs in her hand.
Kate has been carving out a nice line in Daddy’s girl for the last few years, specialising in attending AFL matches (go Tiges!) and cricket games and cuddling up on the couch to watch everything from NBA basketball to soccer and rugby – gorgeous to see. Amy is so instinctively clever – true to her nature, she doesn’t compete or try to crash that party for two. Instead she has laid claim to the title of Playstation 2 buddy, carefully selecting games for Daddy’s birthday for the two of them to share and master together. And instead of spectating football and cricket, she chooses to head on down to the local park at the weekend with Andrew and hit the nets or have a kick themselves. It’s like an unconscious custody arrangement that works very well.
One of the best things we ever did for Amy (and she waited patiently for years for me to be well enough to do so) was to adopt her darling, her beloved, her childhood soulmate Lucky from the RSPCA. If Sophie is Amy’s occasional, easygoing whipping girl and outlet for venting anger, then Lucky is certainly her outlet for love, passion and affection. We all love Lucky, but he has always been and will always be, hers. And to underscore the relationship, she almost immediately married him – very seriously - and even now, at the much more grown up age of 11, she publicly speaks about him as her husband to her friends. She has patience beyond her years to teach him to beg, walk on his hind legs, jump through hoops etc. Another entrepreneur like her older sister, she has already started working on her dog-walking business, recruiting neighbours with savvy marketing strategies and a genuine love for all things canine.
Amy’s a perfectionist, is way too hard on herself, despite being very deliberately parented in an easy-going style. She is shy outside her comfort zone, is a deep thinker (and worrier), yet has a madcap sense of humour too. She is a true snuggle-bunny and incredibly, at the age of 11, I can still comfortably sit her on my hip while chatting. She loves having secret things in common with me that her sisters don’t share – from both being left-handed to having the same chameleon eye colour. She’s good at many things, but socialising does not come naturally to her. She has always been one to appear out of her bedroom at 10.30pm at night to ask me in a trembling voice “where will I live when I’m a grownup?” or “what will happen to Daddy if he can’t stop smoking?” and break my heart just a little. I’m teaching her to challenge her catastrophising negative thoughts and she knows she will always be heard and understood. We work hard together to take the steps that can be so effortless for siblings and peers and so big for her little feet. She is buried so deeply in my heart, it’s the fiercest bond I can imagine and I have to make myself fight the instinct to protect her from the world. She is my angel bear and my hero because as I remind her, it’s easy to do things if you’re not scared, but if you’re scared and you do things anyway, you are the bravest, biggest person I know.
And she is.
Love to Mrs Lucky on her 11th birthday
xxxxx
