Maia turned 10 last week. It hit me harder than I thought it would; my child going from single to double digits. Just choosing a card brought a lump to my throat. (As did the cost of the two giant helium balloon digits.)
On the eve of her birthday, I told her about the day she was born. She discovered she was born in water and that her grandad very nearly had to drive her dad and I to the hospital, because grandma (who had planned to drive us) was taking so long in Tesco.
“How long were you in pain for?”
“How long were you actually birthing me for?”
“What time was I born?”
I loved recounting the tale, especially to her.
This was the year of “specific birthday requests”. She knew what sort of cake she wanted, along with 99% of her presents. Panic arose when, about a week before her birthday, she said: “Mummy am I getting any surprises this year?”. It’s wonderful knowing you’re getting exactly what you’ve chosen for your birthday, a short (extensive) list, a joyous certainty, but surprises are simply more exciting. They make the wrapping of those particular gifts seem more worthwhile. (A great deal of wrapping paper went into gifts she’d already seen, tried on, and confirmed she was happy with.) Adults tend to know what they’re getting. Children adore a surprise.
We opted for a Pandora bracelet. She’d spoken highly of them and I brought it up with a friend who said, “Oh ten’s a big birthday!”. (It’s not. 18 is a big birthday, 21 maybe, and all the zero ones after that, but 10 itself I don’t think actually qualifies as a big birthday.) Big or not, I needed a surprise gift that was in some way special.
The only thing I didn’t love about the bracelet, was the way its value increased every time a new charm was added to it. What starts as X amount, gradually comes to quadruple in value. I once spoke to a girl who lost £450 worth of Pandora bracelets in a club at uni.
“I’ll be annoyed if she doesn’t wear it, but equally won’t want her to wear it in case something happens to it…” I muttered to myself in the store.
“Please don’t make this bracelet into ‘a thing’”, replied Joel, referring to the many “things” Maia and I bicker over, including but not limited to: the number of layers she wears on a cold day, how much water she’s consumed, whether she’s taken her multivitamins and so on.
The bracelet went down a treat, as did the rainbow layer cake, the carefully curated photo album, the So sprays and everything else. Celebrations included having grandma and grandad over for cake and curry, then Clip ‘n Climb and a sleepover with friends over the weekend.
Whilst I love seeing my daughter reach such impressive heights in the climbing centre, (something I could never do at her age, or now), I will never take to watching her, or anyone else’s child go down their famous vertical drop slide. It looks like something that should have been on Don’t Try This at Home; ie unwise and terrifying. They loved it.
I was told off only a few times during the sleepover, once for talking too much to Maia’s friends, and another for “singing too loudly and not very well” whilst washing up.
The girls stayed up till gone midnight; dancing on the bed, sipping Ribena from prosecco glasses and applying face masks.
What better way to see in the double digits?
