"I can do it" . . and how one person's dream, is another's 'devastation'.

From joining up a few bits of words to a whole, meaningful, and very life-affirming phrase! This is Theo's first phrase of more than 2 words (unless you count "good boy, mummy" which, actually, I don't!)

I am continuing to enjoy this. He really is a joy (as my MIL wrote to me today in an email).

Today an odd conversation at the mother/toddler group with a woman I'd not met before. She chatted freely about, after a life of nannying, how she now felt the need to decide if she was to continue with this, or re-train (possibly as a social worker) as her children were now 20 and 18, driving, having lives of their own etc. She is the same age as me.

She continued by talking about her friend, also 45, who had children at the same time as she did, and is now 'devastated' to find herself pregnant again. Doesn't know what to do. I think I managed to keep myself from looking too shocked - my mouth didn't actually drop open, though I did say she should tell her friend to have the baby, and I would adopt it! Oh how strange life really is. We talked rather non-comittally about older mothers - she is currently nannying for 4 children under 9, all born to an older mother, who also has a 21 year-old son. She mentioned that her mother and mother's mother [going back ad infinitum it would seem] had all been 40+ mothers, and began to muse on how she would feel if she found she were pregnant again. With hindsight, maybe she was looking to me for some insight, but I was just too generally gobsmacked to make much sense.

I do have a few hang ups about my age, and just in case anyone wants to know, and because I do need to face them, here are some . . .

1. I don't tell people my age any more. (45 - I guess I can tell you, though I still had to think twice.) I used to think being coy about your age was ridiculous but I have become ridiculous, it seems. I feel stupid to worry that other people will judge me but it does worry me that they will.
2. I spend a stupid amount of time calculating how old I will be when Theo is 16 / 18 / 30 etc. How old he is likely to be when he loses his mother (my own mother has just turned 88, so there is hope that I may reach a good age, except that I have been a little less clean-living, I fear).
3. I also spend time thinking of how old my children would have been if I had had them at a 'normal' age. Related to this, I also wonder if I would actually have been fertile back then, or if the miscarriage problem would have raised its head anyway.
4. I have a desire to seek out other mothers who are at least in their 40s - or, bizarrely, who just look as if they are!
5. I often forget that I am not just over 40 - I am 5 years over 40. Just over 5 years away from 50. I can barely bear to write that!

I think I have issues here! Fitness, strength and health are key, and perhaps some self respect wouldn't go amiss. I know I was very conscious of having an older mother when I was growing up, and I do wish I wasn't doing this to another child . . . but there are worse things, after all.

A birthday

Theo is two years old and he had a 'white' birthday - a good fall of snow overnight gave us a new dimension to playing outdoors. I always think snow is so magical, but I'm not sure he was all that impressed - it wasn't thick enough to make snowmen or go sledging, but I am hoping that tonight's fall will give us that bit extra that we need for tomorrow! His first snow and the end of his second year. Nine months with us.

I made dinner for R's parents and we had a big chocolate cake with candles on it. Absurdly I made Sachertorte - but worth the effort - it was SO beautiful, with his name piped on it. Very sophisticated indeed for a 2-year-old! When we had all eaten a lump I remembered I had forgotten to photograph it, so it will have to be one that we just store in our memories (and arteries!)

My life is mostly very, very happy. It is odd to think that there are 'people out there' who know Theo from before we met him who may be thinking of him today. In a way, I hope they are. He had a card from his foster family, still using the nickname for him that we dropped, which just grates a little. I think I am not perfectly magnanimous.

In the meantime also Theo was diagnosed with a heart murmur. The GP who heard it first drove me crazy with his attitude. Eventually we had an appointment with a paediatric consultant who tried to assure me that there was no reason to worry and no need for a scan. I am not quite satisfied but we'll see. I am also not quite ready to become Mother From Hell at our local surgery (though quite capable of doing so, should I think it necessary!)

My lovely Canadian SIL gave me some advice: "Be a bear with him" - she is bringing up a child with lots of issues - he is "on the autistic spectrum" and has had to deal with all sorts of rubbish. So she knows how to stand up for what is needed for her child.

I am now in the process of trying to decide whether or not to return to work in June. So many pros and cons, but it will have to be another post, probably not tomorrow!