I’d thought a lot about Hux’s first birthday; the end of the baby years, the beginning of his boyhood. The plan was to hold a small tea party with sandwiches, scones, cake and party rings, sing happy birthday in time for Hux and Elfie to have their tea and go to bed worn out after a happy day of cake and present-opening.
What I didn’t anticipate happening on 16th May was a (swift) drive to Oxford’s John Radcliffe hospital following my mum’s not so graceful descent from the top of a ladder.
It was that awful situation you imagine might happen but hope never does. My phone was on silent and I’d missed calls from my Dad, who’d managed to get hold of Will. Will appeared at the front door: “there’s been an accident”. GULP. He said that my mum was fine but she’d gone off to hospital an hour and a half away in a helicopter. Which really, when you think about it, probably means she isn’t fine. An air ambulance! My mum hates flying.
Mum was very lucky: she had a punctured lung and 4 fractured ribs (ouch). Despite being adamant that she wasn’t going to stay overnight in hospital (love the confidence intravenous morphine gives you…) she was kept in til Saturday and is now taking it easy at home.
I told her – you’ll do anything to get out of babysitting, won’t you mum?! ;)
I got home in time to eat the last of the cocktail sausages and a couple of Blinis that Elfie had picked the smoked salmon off. And so my boy was One!
Ah well, we’ll try again next year. He won’t remember this birthday of course, which is good as practicality won over fun and his main gifts consisted of a bath toy, a book and lots of well-needed clothes. Sorry, Bubby.
At the grand old age of a year Hux is still very awesome. He is the most content little man you will ever meet (strangers: “erm, why is your baby so happy?”) and his most favourite thing to do in the world is to put things, anything, in his mouth. His favourite thing to chomp down on is an iPhone wire or laptop cable. Or soil. Not massively high in the nutritional value stakes. He also loves to wave, point and pretend to feed people food.
He doesn’t crawl properly yet but does this cute wiggly wormy commando crawl thing on his elbows. He can happily sit up and has just started bearing weight on his legs if you support him. He can say some choice words: Mama, Dada, Papa, Row Row, Gaga, No, Yeah. He has the softest, sweetest-smelling head of hair that has the slightest hint of strawberry blonde about it.
Hux had a very rough time in the last three months with three consecutive chest infections and a couple of doses of conjunctivitis. You know what’s not fun? Putting cream in a baby’s eyes. They don’t like it. At all.
A hospital X ray confirmed that he did indeed have infections in both lungs but it didn’t look like there was anything more sinister going on which was a huge relief after there were whispers of Cystic Fibrosis from the doctor. We’re going back in a couple of weeks for a follow up but touch wood he has been happy and well ever since.
Elfie loves her brother A LOT, probably a little bit more than he loves her at the moment though this is totally down to how hard she squeezes him when they cuddle. And how much she likes to ‘share’ his toys, when ‘share’ means ‘take it off him because I want anything he’s playing with’. The relationship these two share is so special… at least until the crying starts, anyway.
It’s crazy to look back on this time last year and think about what a different place we are all in now. So much has happened, most of it unexpected. Some sad, some happy, some exciting, some life-changing. Who knows what the next year of this little boy’s life will bring?