Where it all began....

This is a blog about and for my eldest daughter. As I begin this, she is 5 weeks away from her seventh birthday. She is funny, sweet, very clever, kind, amazing and the most beautiful miracle any mother could have not to mention an awesome big sister. She is also at times angry, defiant, depressed, achingly unsure of herself, of her worth, and of her place in the world. This is our journey to find out what we can do as a family to make things better for her, for us as a family, and for the family she will have in the future.

Freyja Honey was, and is, our little miracle. We had some stuff going against us for getting pregnant, and had decided that we would start trying 3 months before we got married. We expected it to take at least 6 months, probably a year or two – we were pregnant next month! That’s Freyja for you, determined to have her own way even if it means making me have last minute dress fittings!

Nine months later (2 days, induction and absolutely no labour ) later she was born. The birth plan had gone out the window, she had decided not to come out, and was eventually born by c-section, to the background music of “Is this the Way to Amarillo” by Tony Christie and Peter Kay on the radio, and the accompanying grunting of the doctor who nearly broke Daddy’s rib using him as support to literally force this baby to leave the womb – yep, really we should have hear alarm bells then. She really will not do something unless she wants to, no matter how much you beg, plead and cajole.

And so, off we went home with our bundle of joy. New parents. I’d never even held a baby before, and here was this amazing little girl.

Freyja was a very happy and smiling baby, very independent even early on, and very quick to develop, though again she would do things when she wanted to, and only then. Just as she was approaching her first birthday she was not yet walking, not really doing much crawling either, though we were sure she could. One day a little girl at daycare that she always played with got up and walked a few steps, much to the excitement of their carer. Freyja immediately got up, stalked across the room, sat down at the other side and gave everyone the look…. Yeah that look, the one that says “I did it better than she did! Now what do I get?” Sure enough she showed off for Daddy and Mama that evening too, and that, as they say, was that.

Her speech was early and she was fast to learn, by a year and a half she had the vocabulary of someone a year older, by 2 years she was speaking in full sentences. Her ability to communicate was wonderful and helped reduce frustration, but at the same time it also became a bit of a curse. She was the size of a child of three when she turned 2. She had the speech of a child of three, so everyone treat her as if she were older, including me if I am truly honest. I had never had a child before, I didn’t know what to expect and thought she was just like any other child. It’s only now as a mother of another baby, and after spending much time with other parents over the last 7 years, that hindsight gives me the truth of it. Everyone expected more of her, everyone treated her as if she should have the understanding of someone older, and we were so wrong to do that.

Along with the early speech development, came an ability to know her alphabet and her numbers, again both were in place by 2 years old, but soon they were accompanied by a frustration that she could not put them into context to read a story, or add up a number. The frustration got worse as she did not want us to teach her, she did not want to LEARN how, she just wanted to KNOW how!

And that was the beginning of the path that we are on now. A great morass of frustration, love, anger, laughter and tears that makes up our family life.