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Showing posts with label birthdays. Show all posts
The big four OH!!!
Friday, 11 December 2009
How did it happen, i don't feel any different to when i was in my teens, i am the same...well, until i look in the mirror and think 'bloody Hell who's that old hag looking back at me !!!'
Oh well, they say life begins at forty, luckily it didn't end for one person in my house who suggested i was now middle aged.
"I AM NOT MIDDLE AGED!" I gently bellowed.
"sorry, but forty is middle aged" said the perpetrator
"I guess it depends on how long you intend to live" I said "say it again and your middle age would have been twenty one years ago!"
Whats wrong with people?????
well, life/the house/work, is totally, insanely hectic, but i have insisted on a night off, I might even get to leave the house for recreational purposes...you never know xxxx
Happy Birthday Aaron.
Saturday, 5 December 2009
Today is a painful day for me, 18 years ago today, I became a mum. Unfortunately Aaron isn't here for me to give a birthday hug, words can't express the ache I feel about that.
The last 3 years without Aaron have been the hardest I have ever had to face,I miss him more than I thought I was capable of. But I am still celebrating in his honour in my own quiet way.
I don't regret a minute, Aaron is responsible for the person I am today and for that, I am eternally grateful.
I know wherever he is, he'll be having cake!
I thought it would be fitting to share the opening passage in his book with you.
The day I met Aaron!
It’s 3.17 am on Thursday the 5th December 1991 In Greenwich District hospital, London. After Twenty three and a half hours of labour, lots of kicking and screaming (me, not Aaron) the midwife finally bundled a tiny baby on my chest and I felt a rush of love like I never knew existed, fireworks went off in my chest, I’d just discovered the meaning of life. My son was here!
I knew something wasn’t right straight away, Aaron was very grey and he hadn’t cried yet, just as soon as I’d got my hands on him it seemed, the nurses whisked him back off me. There were people everywhere, doctors and nurses coming in and out of the room, lots of shouting, alarms going off. Not to mention the man at the end of the bed giving me so many stitches that I thought he was knitting a jumper. I thought he’d at least emerge with a pair of booties for the baby...nothing.
This isn’t what was supposed to be happening, we should all be crying with joy now, going all googly eyed over the top of our new babies head, meeting our new baby boy and counting his fingers and toes. Not hearing doctors saying that they couldn’t get him breathing, and asking each other how long he’d been down.
We waited for the longest seventeen minutes of our lives, Dave looked so scared, and I think I held my breath for the whole time, then; at last we heard a cry, it was the determined cry of the fighter my baby was about to have to become; and I just knew in my heart that everything was going to be o.k.
SCBU Special Care Baby Unit
The next couple of days were a blur of Special Care, wires, tubes and alarms. We were young, first time parents and completely bewildered by all the equipment, bleeps, and nurses. There were blood tests and brain scans and we couldn’t do a single thing. We used to sit there holding Aaron’s hands through the incubator doors, telling him how much we loved him, telling him how special he was, and willing him to be strong. He wasn’t a premature baby, like all the tiny ones in the other incubators, he was 9lb 1oz, he looked so healthy and chubby, so why was he here? What was going on?
Aaron had drips going into both his little arms, a tube going down his nose, a tube coming from his umbilical cord; he had a plastic box over his head with oxygen pumping into it, there were pads on his chest and probes of some sort on his finger and his toe. I had never even seen a baby in an incubator before, except on television. I didn’t really even know what all the wires and monitors were for, I just new my little boy was in there, in this plastic box, having things done to him that must have been hurting him. I was his Mum, he was mine, but I was powerless to stop it all. He must have been desperate for a cuddle, I know I was.
The doctors came round four or five times a day, whispering amongst themselves about our baby and the treatment he needed, us in our naivety not really realising we had the right to ask them exactly what they were saying, what they were going to do to make our baby well. Then they’d turn to us and tell us that he’d had a rough start and they would wait for him to improve, then they would all scuttle off again, move on to the next incubator, whisper about the next baby. We just thought that’s how it was.
My First Cuddle
I first held Aaron when he was two days old. A nurse had to take him out of the incubator and pass him to me, and we had to be careful of all the tubes and wires attached to him, I couldn’t quite believe that someone else had held my baby before I had, but as soon as he was in my arms, it didn’t matter. That was the most intense moment of my life, I fell in love with Aaron before he was even born, but this was the moment he tried to open his eyes and look at me, I made him a promise then and there that I would love him forever and keep him safe.
Before long I understood what all the monitors were for, the nurses were so lovely and explained everything as they were doing it. After the first couple of days, I was changing Aaron’s nappy and washing him, brushing his hair, none of it an easy task through the two small incubator doors! I got to cuddle him two or three times a day, we bonded just like any other mother and her first baby. It wasn’t quite how I imagined it, but things never always are.
Happy Birthday Aaron xxxxxx
The day I met Aaron!
It’s 3.17 am on Thursday the 5th December 1991 In Greenwich District hospital, London. After Twenty three and a half hours of labour, lots of kicking and screaming (me, not Aaron) the midwife finally bundled a tiny baby on my chest and I felt a rush of love like I never knew existed, fireworks went off in my chest, I’d just discovered the meaning of life. My son was here!
I knew something wasn’t right straight away, Aaron was very grey and he hadn’t cried yet, just as soon as I’d got my hands on him it seemed, the nurses whisked him back off me. There were people everywhere, doctors and nurses coming in and out of the room, lots of shouting, alarms going off. Not to mention the man at the end of the bed giving me so many stitches that I thought he was knitting a jumper. I thought he’d at least emerge with a pair of booties for the baby...nothing.
This isn’t what was supposed to be happening, we should all be crying with joy now, going all googly eyed over the top of our new babies head, meeting our new baby boy and counting his fingers and toes. Not hearing doctors saying that they couldn’t get him breathing, and asking each other how long he’d been down.
We waited for the longest seventeen minutes of our lives, Dave looked so scared, and I think I held my breath for the whole time, then; at last we heard a cry, it was the determined cry of the fighter my baby was about to have to become; and I just knew in my heart that everything was going to be o.k.
SCBU Special Care Baby Unit
The next couple of days were a blur of Special Care, wires, tubes and alarms. We were young, first time parents and completely bewildered by all the equipment, bleeps, and nurses. There were blood tests and brain scans and we couldn’t do a single thing. We used to sit there holding Aaron’s hands through the incubator doors, telling him how much we loved him, telling him how special he was, and willing him to be strong. He wasn’t a premature baby, like all the tiny ones in the other incubators, he was 9lb 1oz, he looked so healthy and chubby, so why was he here? What was going on?
Aaron had drips going into both his little arms, a tube going down his nose, a tube coming from his umbilical cord; he had a plastic box over his head with oxygen pumping into it, there were pads on his chest and probes of some sort on his finger and his toe. I had never even seen a baby in an incubator before, except on television. I didn’t really even know what all the wires and monitors were for, I just new my little boy was in there, in this plastic box, having things done to him that must have been hurting him. I was his Mum, he was mine, but I was powerless to stop it all. He must have been desperate for a cuddle, I know I was.
The doctors came round four or five times a day, whispering amongst themselves about our baby and the treatment he needed, us in our naivety not really realising we had the right to ask them exactly what they were saying, what they were going to do to make our baby well. Then they’d turn to us and tell us that he’d had a rough start and they would wait for him to improve, then they would all scuttle off again, move on to the next incubator, whisper about the next baby. We just thought that’s how it was.
My First Cuddle
I first held Aaron when he was two days old. A nurse had to take him out of the incubator and pass him to me, and we had to be careful of all the tubes and wires attached to him, I couldn’t quite believe that someone else had held my baby before I had, but as soon as he was in my arms, it didn’t matter. That was the most intense moment of my life, I fell in love with Aaron before he was even born, but this was the moment he tried to open his eyes and look at me, I made him a promise then and there that I would love him forever and keep him safe.
Before long I understood what all the monitors were for, the nurses were so lovely and explained everything as they were doing it. After the first couple of days, I was changing Aaron’s nappy and washing him, brushing his hair, none of it an easy task through the two small incubator doors! I got to cuddle him two or three times a day, we bonded just like any other mother and her first baby. It wasn’t quite how I imagined it, but things never always are.
Happy Birthday Aaron xxxxxx
its getting to that time of year
Friday, 4 December 2009
It is now Dec, and like the last three Decembers I am getting nervous.
It used to be that December was my favourite month of all time, I became a mum on December the 5th, my birthday is the 11th and then of course there's Christmas.
We're big on Christmas, Aaron and I shared a love of all things tacky, if it jiggled, sang, glittered, we had to have it.
So now, I dread December, I don't get to celebrate Aarons birthday, not in the same way, so thinking about enjoying my own birthday a few days later falls flat, and Christmas is not the same without my Aaron.
I make sure we celebrate, and I do smile and love to see the kids faces light up, my fear is that I'm just going through the motions...or is that, in fact what I have to do until it comes naturally.
I loved when we spent birthdays like this
Tuesday, 22 September 2009
I loved when the kids were small, and birthdays were all about cake and balloons.
Now they are all about the right dress and make overs.
Robyn was 15 at the weekend, and no, she didn't want a McDonald's party, or to go to the park or adventure playground, she wanted to shop til she dropped and to have a sophisticated lunch with her friends....
Where do the years go???
A little kindness goes a long way.
Thursday, 29 January 2009
I am just writing this blog, because I was touched today by someone’s simple act of kindness.
The day didn’t start off great; Deion had a couple of hospital appointments; we had our usual two hour wait for the first and our usual tussle over results at the second, I left knowing nothing more than I did before we went.
Then as we had an hour to spare between the hospital appointments and Deion’s Physio therapist appointment, I took Deion shopping so he could spend his birthday money.
We inevitably ended up in the game shop, because somehow he ended up with about seventy thousand pounds worth of game card vouchers (slight exaggeration!) for his birthday.
I then got his feet measured and had to hand over roughly the equivalent of our monthly shopping budget for a pair of trainers just because they were a particular brand and colour…great.
We then gave up in pound land, as the isles are too small for his wheelchair to get around, of course we had the requisite number of doors slammed in our face, the usual amount of people moaning about Deion getting in the way and of course I had expended an extraordinary amount of energy in NOT thumping at least twenty people for being so bloody rude!
So I just didn’t have the energy to argue when he asked for a MacDonald’s for lunch. He couldn’t believe his luck when I didn’t lecture him about trans fats and nitrates (yep, I’m that sad), but instead just held the door open for him to go on in.
While we were trying to fight our way through the crowds of schoolchildren (that surely should have been in school anyway) Deion got walked into, banged and scowled at about ten times. The usual really… people just don’t see him, they are only looking at eye level I guess!
Then a lady who worked there told us to go and sit down and she would get our food for us to save us queuing. This was new to me, and not something that is normal practice in MacDonald’s I believe. But we followed her to a table, she wiped it down, asked Deion what he wanted, and then went off to get his happy meal. She came back literally a few moments later, gave us the food and handed me my change.
Deion and I, dumb struck, thanked her profusely.
She told us it was her pleasure, she has a daughter in a wheelchair and knows how hard it is, but it was so refreshing, because she actually spoke to Deion instead of over him, instantly knowing the wheelchair didn’t make him stupid. She was lovely and it made a huge difference to what is normally a nightmare of pushing and shoving and ‘excuse mes’ into something quite relaxing.
I’m sure to her it was nothing more than a small act of kindness, but to us it was beyond nice, and she made Deion feel really special.
“Wasn’t she a lovely lady mum,” Deion said as we left.
“Yes she was,” I said.
“I wish more people were like her don’t you mum?”
Yes I do!
Take care
Sal & Deion xxxx
Happy Birthday Deion
Saturday, 17 January 2009
Deion’s birthday has arrived. He’s happy, I’m knackered. I scoured the whole of south east England to find the game he wanted for his PS3, I had a scuffle in the PC World sale for the last gaming chair, I managed to find a yellow, car shaped cake (as he decided two days ago this is what he needed), I’ve arranged to take him and 12 of his friends bowling, and don’t hold out much hope of getting through the day without hitting the brandy.
He'll never guess what it is!!!
Deion has some lovely friends, but there is one in particular that drives me to drink, he’s a lovely kid, but has to be the only person on the planet that talks more than Deion. So this should be fun.
But as long as Deion has a good day, that’s all that matters. He’s had a long year in one way or another, he’s worked hard at school and he is after all my cutie pie!
He is as we speak trying out his new chair and his new game, and I can’t wait to have a go, in this particular game, get to be Wonder Woman! Yay! Of course Deion is getting a bit above himself, telling me he’ll be Batman and kick my butt…he doesn’t know much, as if Batman can beat Wonder Woman in a fight, he hasn’t even got special powers…goodness me!
Have a great day
Sal xxx
Thank you
Sunday, 7 December 2008
I just wanted to say thank you to everyone for the lovely e-mails and messages you sent for us all on Friday. Your words were a great comfort to us all. Aaron must be thrilled to know he is widely remembered, sorely missed and touching the hearts of new people all over the world every day. He would expect nothing less of course!
Sal xxxx
The Day I Met Aaron
Friday, 5 December 2008
As its Aaron’s birthday today, I thought it would be fitting to share the opening passage in his book with you.
The day I met Aaron!
It’s 3.17 am on Thursday the 5th December 1991 In Greenwich District hospital, London. After Twenty three and a half hours of labour, lots of kicking and screaming (me, not Aaron) the midwife finally bundled a tiny baby on my chest and I felt a rush of love like I never knew existed, fireworks went off in my chest, I’d just discovered the meaning of life. My son was here!
I knew something wasn’t right straight away, Aaron was very grey and he hadn’t cried yet, just as soon as I’d got my hands on him it seemed, the nurses whisked him back off me. There were people everywhere, doctors and nurses coming in and out of the room, lots of shouting, alarms going off. Not to mention the man at the end of the bed giving me so many stitches that I thought he was knitting a jumper. I thought he’d at least emerge with a pair of booties for the baby...nothing.
This isn’t what was supposed to be happening, we should all be crying with joy now, going all googly eyed over the top of our new babies head, meeting our new baby boy and counting his fingers and toes. Not hearing doctors saying that they couldn’t get him breathing, and asking each other how long he’d been down.
We waited for the longest seventeen minutes of our lives, Dave looked so scared, and I think I held my breath for the whole time, then; at last we heard a cry, it was the determined cry of the fighter my baby was about to have to become; and I just knew in my heart that everything was going to be o.k.
SCBU Special Care Baby Unit
The next couple of days were a blur of Special Care, wires, tubes and alarms. We were young, first time parents and completely bewildered by all the equipment, bleeps, and nurses. There were blood tests and brain scans and we couldn’t do a single thing. We used to sit there holding Aaron’s hands through the incubator doors, telling him how much we loved him, telling him how special he was, and willing him to be strong. He wasn’t a premature baby, like all the tiny ones in the other incubators, he was 9lb 1oz, he looked so healthy and chubby, so why was he here? What was going on?
Aaron had drips going into both his little arms, a tube going down his nose, a tube coming from his umbilical cord; he had a plastic box over his head with oxygen pumping into it, there were pads on his chest and probes of some sort on his finger and his toe. I had never even seen a baby in an incubator before, except on television. I didn’t really even know what all the wires and monitors were for, I just new my little boy was in there, in this plastic box, having things done to him that must have been hurting him. I was his Mum, he was mine, but I was powerless to stop it all. He must have been desperate for a cuddle, I know I was.
The doctors came round four or five times a day, whispering amongst themselves about our baby and the treatment he needed, us in our naivety not really realising we had the right to ask them exactly what they were saying, what they were going to do to make our baby well. Then they’d turn to us and tell us that he’d had a rough start and they would wait for him to improve, then they would all scuttle off again, move on to the next incubator, whisper about the next baby. We just thought that’s how it was.
My First Cuddle
I first held Aaron when he was two days old. A nurse had to take him out of the incubator and pass him to me, and we had to be careful of all the tubes and wires attached to him, I couldn’t quite believe that someone else had held my baby before I had, but as soon as he was in my arms, it didn’t matter. That was the most intense moment of my life, I fell in love with Aaron before he was even born, but this was the moment he tried to open his eyes and look at me, I made him a promise then and there that I would love him forever and keep him safe.
Before long I understood what all the monitors were for, the nurses were so lovely and explained everything as they were doing it. After the first couple of days, I was changing Aaron’s nappy and washing him, brushing his hair, none of it an easy task through the two small incubator doors! I got to cuddle him two or three times a day, we bonded just like any other mother and her first baby. It wasn’t quite how I imagined it, but things never always are.
I guess life never really turns out how you think it will. I never imagined when I had Aaron that he wouldn’t be here with me on all his birthdays, we just don’t expect to outlive our children do we…it’s not the natural order of things.
But here I am on his seventeenth birthday, missing him more than ever.
Take care
Sal xxx
Happy Birthday Aaron xxxxxx
The day I met Aaron!
It’s 3.17 am on Thursday the 5th December 1991 In Greenwich District hospital, London. After Twenty three and a half hours of labour, lots of kicking and screaming (me, not Aaron) the midwife finally bundled a tiny baby on my chest and I felt a rush of love like I never knew existed, fireworks went off in my chest, I’d just discovered the meaning of life. My son was here!
I knew something wasn’t right straight away, Aaron was very grey and he hadn’t cried yet, just as soon as I’d got my hands on him it seemed, the nurses whisked him back off me. There were people everywhere, doctors and nurses coming in and out of the room, lots of shouting, alarms going off. Not to mention the man at the end of the bed giving me so many stitches that I thought he was knitting a jumper. I thought he’d at least emerge with a pair of booties for the baby...nothing.
This isn’t what was supposed to be happening, we should all be crying with joy now, going all googly eyed over the top of our new babies head, meeting our new baby boy and counting his fingers and toes. Not hearing doctors saying that they couldn’t get him breathing, and asking each other how long he’d been down.
We waited for the longest seventeen minutes of our lives, Dave looked so scared, and I think I held my breath for the whole time, then; at last we heard a cry, it was the determined cry of the fighter my baby was about to have to become; and I just knew in my heart that everything was going to be o.k.
SCBU Special Care Baby Unit
The next couple of days were a blur of Special Care, wires, tubes and alarms. We were young, first time parents and completely bewildered by all the equipment, bleeps, and nurses. There were blood tests and brain scans and we couldn’t do a single thing. We used to sit there holding Aaron’s hands through the incubator doors, telling him how much we loved him, telling him how special he was, and willing him to be strong. He wasn’t a premature baby, like all the tiny ones in the other incubators, he was 9lb 1oz, he looked so healthy and chubby, so why was he here? What was going on?
Aaron had drips going into both his little arms, a tube going down his nose, a tube coming from his umbilical cord; he had a plastic box over his head with oxygen pumping into it, there were pads on his chest and probes of some sort on his finger and his toe. I had never even seen a baby in an incubator before, except on television. I didn’t really even know what all the wires and monitors were for, I just new my little boy was in there, in this plastic box, having things done to him that must have been hurting him. I was his Mum, he was mine, but I was powerless to stop it all. He must have been desperate for a cuddle, I know I was.
The doctors came round four or five times a day, whispering amongst themselves about our baby and the treatment he needed, us in our naivety not really realising we had the right to ask them exactly what they were saying, what they were going to do to make our baby well. Then they’d turn to us and tell us that he’d had a rough start and they would wait for him to improve, then they would all scuttle off again, move on to the next incubator, whisper about the next baby. We just thought that’s how it was.
My First Cuddle
I first held Aaron when he was two days old. A nurse had to take him out of the incubator and pass him to me, and we had to be careful of all the tubes and wires attached to him, I couldn’t quite believe that someone else had held my baby before I had, but as soon as he was in my arms, it didn’t matter. That was the most intense moment of my life, I fell in love with Aaron before he was even born, but this was the moment he tried to open his eyes and look at me, I made him a promise then and there that I would love him forever and keep him safe.
Before long I understood what all the monitors were for, the nurses were so lovely and explained everything as they were doing it. After the first couple of days, I was changing Aaron’s nappy and washing him, brushing his hair, none of it an easy task through the two small incubator doors! I got to cuddle him two or three times a day, we bonded just like any other mother and her first baby. It wasn’t quite how I imagined it, but things never always are.
I guess life never really turns out how you think it will. I never imagined when I had Aaron that he wouldn’t be here with me on all his birthdays, we just don’t expect to outlive our children do we…it’s not the natural order of things.
But here I am on his seventeenth birthday, missing him more than ever.
Take care
Sal xxx
Happy Birthday Aaron xxxxxx
Remembering Those We Have Lost
Monday, 1 December 2008
As I have mentioned already. Aaron would have been seventeen on Friday 5th December. Needless to say this is a rather emotional week for me. So rather than try to skim over it, or stick a bright smile on my face and say everything is fine, as is often the tendency. I have written about it and been as honest as I can.
In that vein, Trojan and I got together yesterday and did our weekly video blog about loss, coping with loss and the importance of remembering those we love. We ran over time, and that is why Trojan split it into two videos rather that edit, it isn't the sort of subject you can cut short.
Everyone who knows Aaron has their own way of remembering him, their own way of wishing him a happy birthday. The same way as we all have a way of remembering those who have passed on.
I know some people find it too painful to remember, and that is fine, there are no right and wrongs, no rule books, and grieving is a completely personal thing.
For me, it is the memories that keep me going, all the good stuff is mixed up in there with the bad stuff, the good memories far outweigh the bad. So for me, remembering Aaron’s smile, and the love in his eyes, his hugs, his cheeky laugh, that’s what makes me carry on, that’s what pushes me on to leave a legacy for him with the t-shirts, the charity and the books.
He will be in the hearts and minds of those who knew him forever, but I am determined that for generations to come, Aaron will be passing on his special love and generous spirit.
He is mummy’s Angel xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Happy Birthday
Wednesday, 19 November 2008
Happy Birthday to Trojan, today is his twenty first birthday...again!!! I'm kidding, but I'm not sure how he feels about revealing his true age...but I think you'll agree, he looks great for seventy two!! (now he really will kill me). You are a true friend and a brillinat dance/blog/video/radio show partner....Hope you have a lovely birthday Trojan, and many many more to come. x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
