A black eye and a taste of heaven

This is an old post; I wrote it when Lizzy was eight, and it's only needed a little updating now that she's eleven. Yesterday was her birthday and it all came back to me once again.



Yesterday was my little girl's eleventh birthday and she was more excited than an excited thing. We did all the stuff; we did presents, we did birthday-tea-full-of-treats-with-little-nutritional value, we did balloons, we did singing, we did blowing out candles. We did hugs and we did great big smiles. We did reminiscing, Daddy and me.

I gave birth to Elizabeth after a rapid labour that confounded the midwives. I had a single paracetamol for pain relief at about half past eight because the midwife who examined me thought I had a very long way to go and assumed I was a bit of a wuss to be asking about it so early in the game. When I got hold of the gas and air I left teeth-marks in the mouthpiece and nail marks where I had it clenched in my fist. Daddy arrived at half past nine fresh off a train from London and walked in nonchalantly just in time for the punchline. 

At 10.16pm, Elizabeth Lucy took everyone by surprise and was born on a plinth in an examination room on the hottest day of the year 2005, and all the fans were in use elsewhere. It was warm work.

I held my little girl in my arms and I was filled with wonder. Long fingers, a mass of light brown hair, button nose, little chin just like her Daddy's and a big black eye. She was brand new, moments old,  with a lusty cry before she was even fully born. 

Red and bruised, head slightly elongated, one eye bloodshot and swollen shut, little rosebud lips giving us glimpses of a little pointy tongue, the sharpest of tiny fingernails. Beautiful? Well, yes and no. Or more accurately, no - and yes, breathtakingly beautiful. A whole person made up of half me and half Daddy. Two of everything down the sides and one of everything down the middle. Breathing, crying, suckling, waving, kicking, snuggling. Fragile and yet so strong. Miraculous. 

I can't explain it, that thing that happened that night. The way that I went in to the hospital someone's wife and someone's daughter and came out still those things but now someone's mother too. Everything changed that night. The world tilted slightly and never righted itself; it's strange that nobody ever noticed but me. 

Even after the midwife cut the cord, Elizabeth was attached to me. She always will be. I tell her that she's my baby girl and sometimes she snuggles closer when I say that and other times she stiffens and tells me in no uncertain terms that she's not a baby, she's a grown up girl. She has a little sister, also my baby girl, and Lizzy sometimes feels the weight of older sister responsibility very keenly. Lizzy is my oldest, my firstborn, my worrier. She's my vibrant, energetic, imaginative, complicated, softhearted, fearless dynamo of a daughter.  

Things weigh heavily on my Lizzy, her self-esteem sometimes is tissue-paper fragile and we work and we work to build her up. 

I know it's not the way to bring up a brave, strong woman, but I'd spare her every second of pain and hurt if I could, for the whole of her life. I'd rather the rough stuff happens dot me than her. From complicated and painful orthodontics to disaster in the final of the 100m butterfly to the boy who asked her to a party and then told her he'd been joking when she said yes.

And since I'm no stoic myself, it's nothing short of a miracle that I'd do that, and do it in an instant. But a miracle did happen that night when I had my baby. I became someone different when I became a mummy. I'm still growing into that person; I suspect it might take me the rest of my life. It's not easy.

Not easy at all, but often wonderful. I sat on the side of her bed last night at 10.16pm and I stroked her hair and kissed her forehead and inhaled the fragrance of her as she slept.

When she was a baby I used to carry her with her head on my chest and I would breathe in her baby smell and I remember offering her to another family member to sniff because she smelled so beautiful. They smiled politely but they didn't get it. I wonder if it's just for me - some primal thing, some deeply profound connection just for mother and daughter? I don't know. I do know that from the moment I took my first breath as a mummy, it's my favourite fragrance in the world, matched only by that of her little sister. 

They say that smell is the sense most closely linked to memory - then maybe that's why. Last night I remembered like yesterday that night in the tiny room on the hard, high, narrow examination table, hot and exhausted and dazed, with my baby girl on my chest. 

Inelegant, undignified, undone. 

Nobody tells you these things about having a baby. Nobody tells you the true horror of the sleep deprivation that makes you feel as if life is not worth living. Nobody tells you about the dilemmas of high temperatures and endless crying and inoculations and school selection. No-one teaches you how to untangle baby-fine hair or comb for nits or how to use hair straighteners because that's what all the girls at school do. No-one tells you what to do when your baby girl is bullied, or bullies, or doesn't get on with a teacher. Nobody tells you how to prepare your daughter for senior school, or puberty, or ready her for success and failure.

You play it by ear, and sometimes the notes are all muddled up. 

It's a good job you don't get a glimpse of the soul searching that goes on when your baby girl has no confidence, or loses sleep to anxiety, or cries too easily when things go wrong. Was it me? My inadequacy complex was genetic? Or have I criticised too much, encouraged too little, corrected too forcibly? Crushed when I should have coaxed? Demolished when I should have built up?

Don't get me started. I'm eleven years in to this motherhood thing and the truth is that I don't know what I'm doing any more than I did that night in June eleven years ago. There's no instruction booklet and no map. I just feel my way; every year I have fewer answers. Sometimes we skip along at a lovely pace, everyone smiling, and the scenery is wonderful. I take lots of pictures and get very sentimental with souvenirs. Other times I get completely lost. I hit dead ends and unexpected detours and I have to crawl my way back. I ask a lot of questions and cry a lot of tears, inwardly and outwardly. 

 Nobody tells you how to do it. I think that's pretty normal, isn't it? 

But the most breathtakingly powerful thing that nobody ever tells you is that the whole world changes. 

The whole world changes. So much that I'll never forget a single detail of 10.16pm on that evening eight years ago and when I look down at the long, lean frame of my beautiful sleeping girl, arms flung out in her birthday pyjamas, my head fills with memories of first breaths, first smiles, first steps - and my heart swells.

Nobody tells you how much you'll love them. 

It's a little taste of heaven.

Grown up but still cute

So, God, my little Katy is six. 

Six, and very proud of her sixness. On the morning of her birthday she announced that she did indeed feel different. She had been concerned, she went on, that it might turn out slightly disappointing, like her fifth birthday last year when she realised that she didn't feel any different at all. I hadn't realised that she'd had a disappointing fifth birthday; her disappointment on the day manifested itself as excitement and delight, and so I am not going to worry about it. 

Daddy and I had festooned the house with Happy Birthday banners and her presents were arrayed on the kitchen table next to a house-sized helium balloon in the shape of a number 6. She'd picked out her birthday clothes, and mercifully her school decided not to celebrate World Book Day by insisting on dressing up as a favourite character because her chosen look was Grown Up But Still Cute. Her words.

She sported a badge telling the world that she was six, had on her lovely red and blue knitted dress with a big flower  and she went off to school the proudest, smiliest little girl in the world. My heart swelled as she waved bye bye, secure in the knowledge that the world was waiting to celebrate with her, and that she was indeed, grown up but still cute. 

As an extra-special treat, Bryan and I spent the morning tidying her desperately chaotic bedroom. For a child who is careful and painstaking in so many ways, she has a mental block when it comes to putting things away.

Around this age big sister Elizabeth decided that a tidy room was essential to her emotional wellbeing and these days is obsessive about a place for everything and everything in its place. She takes this to the extent that any new toys bought for them to share are quickly allocated a spot on Katy's floor, rather than upset the status quo in Lizzie's. So, when I go in to kiss Katy goodnight I sort of have to feel along the floor with my feet to avoid snapping antennae off aliens (now on Daddy's gluing pile) or setting off the siren on a fire engine (she didn't even wake up). 

It looked lovely. The sort of room that I would have loved when I was little. Bright, child-friendly accessories were rediscovered and colours that weren't invented when I was five. Katy came home from school and declared it her best present. She's played up there in her room ever since.

Result.

Meanwhile, back at party HQ, I shopped for party food. It always makes me wince, this twice-yearly trip to the supermarket in March and then again in June, where I approach the check out with a too-full basket full of treats and party-fare that has no nutritional value whatsoever. Still, there were grapes.  And cucumber. Ahem.

Party tea for family, more presents and cake and candles. Sausage rolls and chicken nuggets and popcorn and crisps and hula hoops on fingers and chocolate crispies and choruses of Happy Birthday. Oh, and grapes and cucumber. 

Lovely, lovely. It just was lovely. Katy went to bed saying that it was her best birthday ever, and she still had the party with her friends to look forward to on Saturday. I breathed a sigh of relief that today was Thursday and Friday stood like a blessed oasis of calm between today and Saturday. 

Saturday dawned bright and sunny in all the Enid Blyton books I've ever read, but this one was breathtakingly cold and wintry. Frosty morning, moving through drizzle into steady sleet by mid afternoon. I have never been to the bowling alley when it's not been raining, you know. How weird is that?  Is it some sort of sign?

Party morning was not my finest hour. Tired and overwhelmed at the prospect of all that needed doing. I still needed to shop for ingredients and bake buns for the Happy Birthday slot, put together twelve all important party bags while making a curry from scratch with my older daughter for a school project and chauffeuring Katy to swimming lessons. I found myself limping tearfully to the church coffee shop for vanilla lattes and a quick panicky offload and snivel to a friend who understood. It helped. Reassured and armed with coffee I went back into the fray.

It all got done.  I was ready. 

Ready as I'd ever be.

Twelve small children for a bowling party. Lots of background noise, a million kids' shoes to exchange for natty bowling shoes (what proportion of five year olds know their own shoe size?) and orders for party meal to be taken. Bowling screens to be programmed by our party helper who kept misplacing the list of names and panicking more than I was.

A has to be on the same team as B because they're best friends, but C can't be because she used to be best friends with A and isn't any more. D is from a different class so had better be with Katy so he feels involved but then that leaves E as the only boy on team Lizzie so best rethink that one. A to G have all bowled before, except C, who only watched her big brother. J has a poorly finger but hooray! It turned out to be on her non-dominant hand! Crisis averted. Turns out that all the kids who could bowl ended up on one team and all the delicate feminine young things were on the other. Hmm.

Elizabeth inadvertently took someone else's turn and scored a strike which was a reason for great delight until she discovered her mistake and then there was great gnashing of seven-year old teeth when the strike was recorded in someone else's column. I accidentally mixed up the names of two similarly solemn five year old girls and got them in the wrong order but no matter - they both scored six and so I breathed a sigh of relief.  We had highs and lows and now and again even managed to miss all ten pins despite the bumpers at the sides of the lane. 

I spent an hour cheering, high-fiving, feeling slightly embarrassed at having my high-five proposal ignored by disgruntled bowler (alright, it was a score of two, but still...) and perfecting the lunge onto one knee to be on a level with a small person. Almost without exception they found it hard to put three fingers in the bowling balls and instead tended to heft it two-handed down the lane with an almighty thump where it moved at a glacial pace towards the pins. I perfected the art of encouraging commentary:

'Great! It'll get there eventually!'

'Good shot. I think that ball might bounce off this side...then that side...yep, there it goes... then it might just glance off that bit and... look! You knocked one over!'

'Well.  Look at that. Would you believe it? Unlucky. Let's try again! We've got plenty of pins left!'

...and so on. My thighs were screaming at me by the end of that session from kneeling down and getting up again. I am not a lightweight person and a million lunges in the space of an hour without any training meant that when it came to the exodus to the cafe for tea my knees wobbled.

The following day I could barely stand and I still can't walk down a flight of steps without wincing. Of course, Katy is full of her new Wii 'Just Dance' game and trying to boogie away rhythmically to Boney M or Bob Marley without bending one's legs is quite a challenge, I'll tell you. Ever tried it?

So, food for twelve at a long table with balloons. Minor catastrophe when children found themselves seated next to the wrong person and Best Friends Forever were inadvertently placed adjacent to Previous Best Friends Forever. Some minor adjustments were necessary before chips could comfortably be consumed. Tomato ketchup was squirted on plates, juice distributed and mopped up. Coffee was drunk by some but I was already on to the next thing; I hastily arranged the slightly smudged buns (icing hadn't had time to dry) onto a plate and stabbed them with six candles. 

K-A-T-Y-6 spelled out in those little pink edible ball bearings that you can break a tooth on. Made a mental note to select one of the naked ones from the bottom row, should any survive. None did.

Happy birthday, dear Kay-teee, happy birthday to you.

She looked so made up at being the centre of attention. So delighted with her friends, with the ten-pin bowling (she got a strike! 'So. Did. I.' spat big sister, only Katy's strike counted towards her own score...). Delighted with her pile of freshly baked buns, with blowing out her candles for the second time - even if the little girl next to her did blow out the nearest three before she'd taken a breath. There's my little girl. All grown up and six. 

And then we were quickly into party bag and goodbye mode. Each bag painstakingly packed with cheap craft activities, sweets and small bun with icing unset. Lots of sweet prompted thank yous and goodbyes. And then it was just us. 

In the car on the way home, little sister smiled out of the window, cheeks bulging, with cake in one hand and chewy sweet in the other. Big sister negotiated the exchange of chewy sweets for the Kinder egg (don't do it, Katy! - ah, but how magnanimous...)  Mummy and Daddy planned feet up, takeaway and the early opening of a bottle of wine. 

So much to thank you for. So much.

That the children were so, so tired that night that they were asleep before our takeaway arrived.

For my gorgeous girls and the inexplicable fact that they're already six and seven years old.

That they are bright, funny and beautiful. That twelve children can come together in a noisy place and throw heavy objects down a runway and nobody was hurt. That it's been a day of generosity and fun and laughter, even if hard work.

That you have given me a love for my children that is so out-of-proportion huge that I will tidy rooms, buy balloons, wrap presents into the night, place little flowers in bud vases, bake last minute buns, put together dubious curries and over-use my long-forgotten quads just to make them smile.

Thank you that we can celebrate. We should celebrate! Just look at all we are blessed with. Thank you for all that we have, physically, emotionally, intellectually, spiritually. Thank you for bowling balls and chicken nuggets (I think). Thank you for high fives and delicate little girls hopping from one leg to another in excitement. For Batman birthday cakes and candles.

Lord, most of all thank you for being there. For watching the bowling balls hit the pins and cheering or commiserating along with us. Thank you that you and the angels sang happy birthday to my little angel and smiled down at her with an infinite love that leaves mine standing, no matter how hard that is for me to understand.

Thank you that you're a God who likes parties. Who turned water into wine just because you didn't want to see the party finish prematurely. A God of joy and celebration. And what's not to celebrate?

Whether we're six, seven, forty, sixty, eighty. Life's to celebrate whenever we get the chance, and usually there's an opportunity if we open our eyes to it. How often I forget that and dwell on the difficulties and disasters when the banners are there to get out and pin up and Spring is on its way even if there's a cold, cold wind today. Katy comes home with a Clean Plate sticker from the lunchtime supervisor (that's a dinner lady to you and me) or Lizzie gets a Star of the Day award - we should celebrate! If I survive another children's party without my head exploding, we should celebrate!

We should blow up balloons just for the sake of letting them zoom round the room with a farting noise.

There's always the possibility of opening a bottle and raising a toast. There's always a reason somewhere.  Laughter and family and fun are worth celebrating as well as good school reports and the first daffodils and a pound or two less on the scales.

I'll let you know when we can do that last one. Don't hold your breath.

Until then, remind me often. When the helium balloon has drooped and Bryan has done the silly voice thing and the Happy Birthday banners are back in the cupboard, help me to celebrate the children, the weather, the fact that I get to wake up another day.

Celebrate that I know and am known by the God who placed the stars in their places, the One who calmed the storm.

Known by the God who knew me when I was just two cells on their way to meet each other.

The One who watches over me, loves me, forgives me, loves me some more.

The One who died for me.

Thank you for my six year old daughter who delights me.

Grown up but still cute. She makes me smile.

Thank you. 

Show me now your glory

Morning, Lord. 

For a couple of days I've had a couple of lines from a song in my head. It's not a song I know very well, and the tune doesn't really grab me, but it's on my worship CD in the car and I hear the start of it sometimes when I put the music on. That probably explains why I only know the opening two lines - I tend to flick to the next track because I don't like this one much (is that wrong? Are you put out that I ignore a song that praises you? Oh dear. Hadn't thought about that much.)

'Show me your ways, show me now your glory.

I want to know you more.'

It's been going round in my head. I was humming it to myself and I found that I was starting to consider what it actually means. I can't argue with the second line - I would love to know you more. It's the demanding tone of the first line that I shrink from, a bit. It sounds a bit stampy to me. 

Show me. Now. 

I know that Moses said these very words to you in Exodus 33: 18

"Then Moses said, 'Now show me your glory.'"

...and you did. You passed by Moses and he got a glimpse of you. Not a hypothetical glimpse, or a symbolic one, but he saw you. Just the back of you, as a full gaze in the face would have blown his mind, but you showed your glory to Moses. He asked you to (or told you to, really - I mean, how did he dare to lay down the law like that? 'Now show me...')

So this song.

'Show me your ways, show me now your glory.

I want to know you more.'

I was walking back from taking the children to school and I noticed the first blossom on a tree on our road. 

Now, you know how much I love Springtime. I love the hope and the newness and the life emerging from things that look old and brittle and dead. Here's the blossom. As I turned into our drive I found more.

It's very beautiful. The light was lovely; it was a very cloudy day but the light was that bright whiteness that sometimes helps to draw my attention to the small things when sunlight and shadow might distract me.  Thankyou for the cherry blossom. I can't wait until the whole of the tree is smothered with it and the sky is blue behind and the world is waking up again and we can shed a layer of clothing and I can start to potter in the greenhouse.

I went home and started to load some photographs from my camera and phone onto the computer and I was still humming the lines,

'Show me your ways, show me now your glory.

I want to know you more.'

The new pictures flashed up on the screen and here was my little girl getting ready for a fancy dress party. Elizabeth had on a princess costume and she was feeling very elegant in it. My little girl, six years old, but all of a sudden with a new demeanour because she was dressed in a beautiful outfit with her hair taken back and ribbons. 

I realised what you were doing. 

Your glory is all around me. Everywhere I look I see you. I see you in the delicate fragility of the cherry blossom and I see you in the innocence and femininity of my lovely girl who's finding out more and more about who she is every day. What she is. A breathtakingly beautiful creation. Unique and precious and loved. My love for her pales into insignificance compared with yours. My daughters are such special gifts. Your glory is reflected in everything, isn't it?

More photos and I kept on meeting you. Sunset from a week ago.

One of those moments where I was out in the garden with the children and glanced up and then ran for the camera and a good vantage point. The sun had set already but the reflection on the clouds was the radiance of you. Glory indeed.

Then it was back to the intricate and detailed again.  Here was my poinsettia from Christmas and I have to say that I have known for a while that it is nothing short of a miracle that my Christmas poinsettia is still with me in March. It is still thriving despite me (though I do make sure that it's water is lukewarm when I give it a drink. Fussy plant...)

Its new leaves, so brightly, vividly green with red veins. Little tiny baby leaves just unfurling. Doing its thing over there on the windowsill as the bustle of family life in the kitchen happens in front of it. As I write this the sun is behind it and it is glowing. Beautiful is an over-used word. It's wonderful.

While we're on the subject of plants, thank you for the little gift you gave me. The cyclamen that I got for my birthday back in September gave its all for me for months and although it still looks green and lush it's been without flowers for a while now. I thought it had done its best but finished for the season and yet all of a sudden, look. A little last flower. It made me smile. It made me think of you. 

It was Katy's birthday the other day. Five years old. Now, I could go on for days about how bewildered I am to be Mummy to two daughters growing up so fast. Katy is five, Elizabeth six, nearly seven. Kate was so excited to be five and her favourite present was a Batman T shirt.  Elizabeth has come over all girly lately with her princess outfit and her baby doll, but Katy is still firmly in the Superhero phase and a real, proper, grownup Batman T shirt hit the spot beautifully on her birthday.

'Show me your ways, show me now your glory.

I want to know you more.'

My little girl was so happy. She felt so brave and dynamic and confident in her Batman T shirt. Watch out world, here comes Katy. Leaping tall buildings in a single bound. Or was that Superman? No matter. She can do that as well.  

Lord God, thank you so so SO much for my girls. How much I can learn from them. From their energy and optimism and imagination. The way that they can find joy in things. Here was my lovely child in a photograph that I love. Her expression a mixture of pride and excitement and happiness. 

 The park on a Sunday afternoon. The joy of a roundabout and rainbow gloves. Hold on tight and feel the wind in your hair.  I thought my heart might explode, I loved them so much. 

Bryan took a day off to be at home for Katy's birthday. It was a great surprise for the girls who thought that he wouldn't be back until Friday as usual and it was such a treat for us to have a day out, just the two of us. Usually Bryan takes holiday when the children are off school so when he's here, usually we're all together. I like it when this happens but on Katy's birthday while she was at school (wearing her birthday badge and Batman T shirt and apparently attracting loads of followers in the playground - the Batkids - don't you just love it?) Bryan and I headed out for the countryside. It was like the old days. When we first moved back to Derbyshire we used to get in the car and drive and stop when there was a good view, or for a bit of a walk, or more often, for coffee and cake. 

Today it was a drizzly, windy sort of day where the moors look somewhat threatening and the cliffs and crags of the High Peak are a bit intimidating; but there was one moment when we were ambling along a country lane with no other people to be seen and suddenly the clouds parted and the sun came out. I stopped the car and rolled down my window and took a picture of what I saw. 

It's not a special scene; dry stone walling is all over Derbyshire and the grass is not very green, the trees bare - but it was a special moment. Seconds earlier it had been unremitting rain under dark, low clouds and then suddenly it was glorious. Grey to gold in a moment - and then back again. This was the moment. Your glory shone through the drizzle.

It was on the news this week that there have been solar flares that meant that it might be possible to see the Northern Lights at lower latitudes than usual. I am a big fan of the Northern Lights, as you know. Bryan and I went on a flight a couple of years ago where the plane put out all its lights and we had talks on the star constellations over the North Pole and we saw the Aurora from the sky. It was breathtaking.

I have always wanted to go to Norway or somewhere and sit outside with a Thermos or two of coffee (or something stronger) and wait for the Aurora Borealis and see it from the ground.  The leaps and swoops and the dancing lights that are a mysterious and joyful present from you, the God Almighty. The one who created all things. Awe-inspiring indeed. Majestic and strange and exciting and spiritual. 

So, there was me the other night hoping to see something if I looked skywards after dark. I popped out into the garden a few times (once forgetting to change out of my slippers and getting them all wet and muddy on the grass) and gazing up into the sky in case of - something - I wasn't really sure what I'd see but I didn't want to miss it. 

What I did see last night took my breath away and I pointed my camera at it in case I could keep it forever. 

Oh God, it was a little glimpse of you. 

The moon with a halo of colour and the clouds like a mountain range. The glow of moonlight lit everything. It changed from moment to moment and then a thick bank of cloud hid it again. Again, mystery. Again, silent but awe-inspiring. You shone through.

'Show me your ways, show me now your glory.
I want to know you more.'

I am running out of words to describe your glory. Indeed the words don't exist. They didn't for Moses, who had to hide behind a rock to be safe from the awe-ful wonder of you, and they didn't for me last night leaning a perilously long way out of my bedroom window to take photograph after photograph of the moon as it rose inexorably into the sky and the clouds changed the picture moment by moment.

All I had to do was look up. How easy it would have been to have missed this spectacle? It was over so quickly and I had to be looking up to see this amazingly precious thing. I spend so much of my life looking down, or inwards, or with my eyes stubbornly closed but this night I looked up - you lifted my head until our eyes met.

I asked you to show me, and you did. I got a glimpse of your majesty. Your beauty. Your creativity. In the blossom and the weather and in my plants and my daughters the complexity and humour and detail and perfect beauty that only the Creator can bring about.

Thankyou from the bottom of my heart. I sat on the windowsill smiling.

More, please. 

Dance like there's nobody watching

'Dance like there's nobody watching

Love like you'll never be hurt

Sing like there's nobody listening

And live like it's heaven on earth'.

William W Purkey

I'm not sure why I like this little poem as much as I do, though I suspect that it might be because I am so self conscious that I can't dance like there's nobody watching, unless I have a small child to dance with, and I can't sing like there's nobody listening because I can't really sing well at all and it would certainly spoil someone's musical experience to have me hooting away next to them.  How I would love to dance as if no-one were watching. To lose myself in singing no matter what the sound that's produced. To be so free... sigh. I'm so far from all that with my narrow, ordered, constrained little life.

As for loving like you'll never be hurt; with regard to romantic love I think that having been hurt in the past makes you more able to recognise when someone is giving you freely all the things that you once tried to wrench from the wrong person and when you can see that, loving with abandon is much easier. Or perhaps I'm just in a loving mood. Perhaps there are those around me who might beg to differ.

I have to confess that loving my children is a different matter. It's the easiest thing in the world and the hardest. Every day I find myself offering love in so many ways; time, so much time, in words, in smiles, in cuddles, in practical tasks, in little offerings - and being forced to rally and give again when it's met with a childish lack of comprehension or understanding. Children can really hurt your feelings, can't they? I guess you know that better than anyone, Lord.

Enough of that for now. Here's a good thing.

On Sunday we took Elizabeth to a soft play centre near Sheffield for her birthday party. I work on the principle that while I can get away with a party for fifteen small children that's organised, hosted and orchestrated by someone else, then I will. At least until the children are old enough to come to a party unaccompanied fifteen Mums who might be assessing me, my house and my party food provision and finding me wanting on all fronts - but that is clearly my own lack of self-confidence speaking.

Lord, did you see Lizzie dancing? She so wanted a disco party, and she had on her new pretty dress that flies out when she spun, she had ribbons in her hair and she felt beautiful. She was beautiful. She shone. She danced and wiggled her hips and jumped and gyrated and waved and sashayed and it was a joy to behold. Afterwards she said to Daddy, 'Daddy, I danced in public, didn't I?' and he told her how wonderful she was. She smiled and accepted his admiration as her due. I loved loved loved seeing her enjoying herself so much. The joy on her face was such a special thing. For a child who is usually so self conscious she was just fabulous. She danced as if no-one was looking. Either that or she danced in a room surrounded by her friends and their parents and she just didn't care. I can't thank you enough.

When all her friends sang Happy Birthday to her at teatime she blushed and smiled and looked proud and embarrassed and overwhelmed but most of all she looked happy. I thought my heart would explode. It helped that her little sister was so generous in her attention all day, singing 'Happy Birthday dear Lizzie!' over and over. It was lovely.  Even worth the overtiredness and party-food-fuelled hyperactivity at bedtime...

I love my girls so much. Sometimes it's so hard to find a way through the maze; to treat them or to spoil them. To give them gifts to make them happy or to give them too much so that they take things for granted. To teach them how lucky/fortunate/blessed they are without robbing them of the joy of being children. I desperately want my girls to value their toys and it breaks my heart and sets my teeth on edge to see them play with a toy then carelessly discard it to reach for something else. I don't know at what age they learn to dissemble, and whether that's a good thing, but I now know to my chagrin that a six year old shows disappointment clearly on their face when unwrapping the wrong present from a distant friend.

How do you teach them all these things, Lord? Sensitivity, gratitude, manners? Sometimes I despair, and those are the times when I inadvertently teach them impatience, criticism and bad-temperedness.

It's a minefield. With every year that passes - no - with every day that passes I realise again that I can't do this parenthood thing on my own. If I were on my own my children would have no hope at all I don't think. I am inadequate in so many ways. I soothe and I nurse and I cuddle and I encourage and I advise and I love and I guide...and I scold and I criticise and I badger and I nag and I shout and I ignore.

My little girl growing up. The pride and the pain.

Lord God, heavenly Father and source of all patience. Source of all that is good. You who forgive me countless times a day, help me to forgive my children for being children. Help me to forgive myself for being less than they need as a Mummy. Make up the shortfall, please, Lord. You and me, how about it? If you sort me out and show me what to do I might be able to hold up my side of the bargain. Without your help, I can't do this. It's too big a job.

Today Elizabeth's first tooth came out. It's been wobbly for - ooh, an eternity, but she's been squeamish about wobbling it and has been most anxious about the day when it falls out. No amount of encouragement or offering to do it for her would get her to give it more than the most gentle of wiggles, but today she forgot and bit into a big bit of birthday cake. Her face went pale, her eyes enormous and her mouth full of chocolate and blood as she held out this tiny, tiny little tooth. Of course, I got out the marching band and swooped in with hugs and congratulations and glasses of water and after a few minutes of panic and dismay and confusion we arrived at a state of pride and world weariness which melted my heart and impressed Katy no end.

Lord, have I done a bad thing in bringing in the Tooth Fairy? I sort of dithered and of course, he who hesitates is lost.  Are you cross with me? Elizabeth is convinced of his/her existence because several friends at school testify to the disappearance of a tooth and the appearance of a shiny coin (£1! A pound! Can you believe that? The going rate when my teeth fell out was a ten pence if I was particularly lucky.) So I've sort of let it go. She's told me a number of times that her tooth is in a small box on her bedside table in case the TF couldn't locate it amongst the stuffed toys and other treasures that lurk beneath her pillow and she wants to know if she can choose what to spend her coin on, rather than never seeing it again as it disappears inside her money box. I hesitated and then gave in and ran with it  because I couldn't handle crestfallen. Not after she was such a brave soldier with a bloody mouth and eyes full of tears.

I just want to make them happy, Lord. I want my children to know you, and know what true joy is. I bring them to church and I read to them and I pray with them sometimes - not as often as I should, I know. I tell them about you, and they hear me singing my worship songs in the car. I could do so much more, I know. And then along comes the Tooth Fairy and steals some of your thunder and I just let him. Oops.

Lord God, I know that you love my children more than I do, which is something that I can't quite get my head round. I know that you want me to be the best Mum I can be and I know that you want to be involved in their upbringing too. Lord I need you, so do they, and not just so the Tooth Fairy doesn't get all the best lines. I need you because so often I am swamped by the demands on me, by the unrelenting day to day routine, by the frustrations and the decisions and the anxieties.

I love my girls, Lord. They are such a huge part of me. My Father, I give them to you, now, all over again. Teach them your ways, Lord. Teach  me to teach them. Give us more of the joy of dancing as if no-one is watching and singing as if no-one is listening. You are always watching and you are always listening, but you alone can delight in an awkward dance and a tuneless song if it is lifted to you by your child. Help me to love my children as if they will never hurt me, when I am hurt daily by them, and when I hurt them so often too.

Help me to live each day as if heaven were here on earth, because it might be. Heaven might be right here and I know this because in Elizabeth's face as she danced, and in her eyes as she realised the enormity of this milestone, of her first missing tooth, I glimpsed a little piece of heaven.