Dear Lexi,
This month has seen you turn one, and seen you officially named. We had a naming ceremony for Georgie when she was only four months old, but with everything that's been going on, the moving etc., there never seemed to be a good time. We thought that your first birthday offered a perfect opportunity, and we aren't doing it at a Church or at a registry office, so we can make it exactly the way we want, without anyone telling us what to do, or taking an outrageous fee for what can turn out to be a badly delivered event. Humpf. Anyway...
We had a lovely party at the St Albans Tennis Club House (pics to follow), and your godparents were singled out in public and gifts were bestowed upon them and upon you - much cake was eaten - your grandparents and your auntie Jackie were troopers with the baking and general helping out at the party (thanks so much guys!), and so thing went off very well.
During Georgie's naming ceremony, Fiona kindly read something by a favourite poet of mine, Billy Collins - a peom called
Litany. I love that poem, and I'm not sure I can explain why (and I have been trying to do that for about an hour now but the right words are not coming.) I suppose in a way poetry is about as close as someone like me is likely to get to a religious or spiritual ritual...
Regardless of why, it is true to say that the sense of warmth and wonder that comes over me every time I read that Billy Collins poem felt right for Georgie's naming day because for some reason it meshed perfectly with that 'new mother' feeling that she engendered in me then.
With you it is different, for that reason and many others, I immediately knew that there was to be another poem for you, one by Adrienne Rich, called November 1968, although of course to me it should read November 2009.
November 1968
Stripped
you're beginning to float free
up through the smoke of brushfires
and incinerators
the unleafed branches won't hold you
nor the radar aerials
You're what the autumn knew would happen
after the last collapse
of primary color
once the last absolutes were torn to pieces
you could begin
How you broke open, what sheathed you
until this moment
I know nothing about it
my ignorance of you amazes me
now that I watch you
starting to give yourself away
to the wind
by Adrienne Rich
I didn't read this out or anything at your party - it didn't feel like that kind of event. But this poem is right for you, for us, for so many reasons and not just because it is autumnal, although I do like the fact that we are both autumn, Scorpio babies. Autumn is my favourite season and your being born into it gave me even more reason to enjoy it. Corny, I know, but true!
But in addition to that, this poem perfectly phrases my surprise when you appeared. Because, you see, up until you were actually born, there was, for me anyway, a slightly casual air to my pregnancy with you - not because I wasn't excited, or careful, but I felt I knew what I was in for, and what babies were like, and that if I wasn't exactly an 'old hand', I had some experience under my belt... and so as we drove to the hospital to liberate you from my body, although I was by no means cavalier, I wasn't exactly absorbing the moment and experiencing the intense range of anticipatory emotions that I did just before Georgie was born - perhaps because it didn't feel like quite such a threshold moment. I was confident that I knew enough, and it did seem that this confidence was going to take some of the wonder out of the experience.
But all that fell away when you were born. I looked at you and immediately understood that I knew nothing about you, that it would take time to get to know you - you were instantly familiar and by equal turns undeniably distinct - unique and totally different from your sister (well duh!) and so despite all my experience with Georgie, or maybe in part because of it, my ignorance of you really did amaze me, and it brought a new, unexpected wonder to an experience that I had believed I was totally prepared for.
So there you go.
New milestones to date include increased cruising and pulling yourself up; opening all the cupboards and pulling out their contents (and trapping your little baby fingers in the process) & refusing to eat unless you are allowed to have your own spoon and to use it while I try to feed you at the same time (sometimes you get the food in your mouth and sometimes it goes astray but your accuracy is improving - meal times are a LOT messier!)
You're still full of surprises, most as yet unopened.
I'm sorry that I haven't had the chance to update your blog for the last couple of months, the demands on my time between you girls, the house and university course load is pretty immense, but all of it is worth it, and I have been taking pictures and paying attention to both of you. As soon as my first essay is handed in next week I'm going to get right on that.
But I wasn't about to let your first birthday pass without a post. We have another little party planned for you on your actual birthday. So Happy Birthday, beautiful girl.
I love you, Lex, thank you for a lovely year,
With lots of love from your Mummy xxx
If you would like to see what Georgie was like at one, click
here.
