And now for something completley different !!!

Now this is a first for me, never did I think when I started blogging that I would write anything that wasn’t based even slightly on observation or humour, but that was sensible and heartfelt. A tale of beauty, amazement and unconditional love... but hey, have pen, will write (or in fact, have keyboard will type, to be more accurate). Anyway, this is for me rather than for anyone else, so indulge me if you will and once done I’ll return to my usual irreverence again.

Three Hearts – One Love

 

So here we are again... it’s January, for most people that’s a time of getting over Christmas, fighting to keep resolutions, strained waistbands, frazzled forelocks and probably just that feeling of being a bit down in the dumps after the festive season.  But in the ‘Fingers’ house it’s very much a case of no rest for the wicked, instead it’s straight from one celebration into another and then yet another, without even time to dust the mantelpiece or a chance to straighten the debris from the floor (well leave it to me, what do you expect?) or even for me to get paid again. 

Anyway, as you know, today is January 4^th 2012 and 8 years ago on this very evening, a truly remarkable thing happened for me, (no not that before you start, that’s annually in April! But we’ll come onto that later ;-). ..) Yes, on that night, I welcomed into this world my second daughter to join her sister, two years her junior.  Now, there’s nothing remarkable in how it happened, no great tales of good fortune or emergency delivery just that it did.  For me and the sixth finger it was a straight forward birth (I suspect more so for me), contractions in the afternoon, despatch to hospital delayed until after I’d managed to get through my Sunday roast dinner, well it might have been a long night? (oh and I hadn’t packed the picnic that the midwife had suggested, so always better safe than sorry) However, it was a short labour, one spent mainly on a bouncy ball, not so sure how that helped, but I enjoyed it all the same and then out she popped, good as gold and as beautiful a sight as I’d ever seen ! That was it for me, my family complete, I had two gorgeous girls for me to adore and look after! People have often asked me if I’d have wanted boys, given that I play football, ride motorbikes and can be pretty laddish, but never once to this day have I ever wished I had. In fact, I wouldn’t change them one iota!

So here I am, thinking how quickly life moves on, as I sit here typing now with both girls at school, youngest 8yrs old today and her sister’s 10^th Birthday on the horizon in a couple of weeks. I look back at how fast time has passed and those days and night I spent with them, changing nappies, cuddling and feeding them.  How the four hourly routine for feeding was like a military operation (I now realise why they were bottle fed, it’s good to share eh .. hey at least my boobs haven’t sagged!), how a 6am Saturday feed after a Friday night out with the boys was both a challenge and a delight (as the fumes of the alcohol slowly soothed us all back to the land of nod)  and how they would sit in their bouncy chairs glued to Super League on the TV on my premise that the bright, fast moving colours stimulated them and their development.  I recall how I sat and read with them and told them stories, how I taught them to stumble forward on their first unsteady steps, I think back to how blessed I was to work shifts and spend time with them as they grew and the bond that developed between us that remains today. They are without doubt, daddy’s girls, of that there is no question.

So throughout the years they’ve grown, they’ve become very different in character and both have unique skills and natural ability and beauty (spoken like a true father),  I’ve been very lucky to have a flexible job that’s allowed me to help on pre-school runs, see school plays and to drop off and pick up from school. Them being here, coupled with me being able to be so close to them, has brought me together with many new people, some who I like and some who I just simply can’t stand, but such is life at the school gates.

Anyway, throughout the 10 years of my girls so far, I have without doubt been taxed and challenged by their upbringing; we’ve had everything from tantrums to tooth fairies, tears and triumphs, highs and lows. My eldest has always breezed through life, happy, clever and confident (oh apart from not wearing jeans without tantrums, what’s that about?), even so, life has a way of testing you and checking you’re on your mettle, a couple of months back she suffered a fit after bedtime, she was out for a long while and the paramedics and ambulances called.. this was without doubt possibly the scariest moment of my life, as I held her motionless in my arms. Thankfully she recovered quickly and she’s been ok since, but it just serves to remind you how precious things can be and how cherished loved ones are.  

Whereas the younger one has always been more of a challenge, she struggled with undiagnosed issues with her hearing for her initial three years, which was later fixed but which has led to the late development of certain skills and visual and memory processing actions. Even now at eight I’ve spent many hours over the past two years, pushing for referrals to optometrists, support and resources. Don’t get me wrong she’s a smart, clever and savvy cookie and will do well, but could quite easily get left behind if the initial delays weren’t addressed. So day in day out I champion her with school and local authority to make sure she gets what’s best.  I sometimes envy parents whose multiple children breeze through school and early life without challenge or effort, but then I soon bring myself back to the fact that she wouldn’t be the same girl that I adore if she was anything other than her.

So in reflection of my first 10 years of fatherhood (just corrected a typo there that said tears of fatherhood..maybe, sometimes??) I realise that I may not always be the best parent, I may sometimes get things wrong, I may lose my temper and sometimes scream and shout. They often deserve it, they’re children and like to test us out. But also sometimes they don’t, but the one thing that I’ve realised is that because of our bond they always forgive me with absolute certainty and pure belief in me as their dad!

So as I lay there with my youngest at 5:30 this morning, on her birthday, after she’d come in and snuggled up with me (‘cause we were told it was too early for her presents..!) we just lay there cheek by cheek, her breathing her sweet breath in my ear (she does have the most incredibly sweet breath) and us tickling fingers together in a stifled quiet way , my thoughts moved to writing this post about both my girls and the joy they bring me.

It’s true that we’ve laughed and cried together, we cuddle and read each night, we scream and shout at each other but we’ve grown a bond that can never be broken. It’s funny but from two so young I have learnt what the true meaning of unconditional love is and how rare and precious a gift that is!

Three Hearts – One Love... FOREVER !!!

Oh and the annually in April thing...  come on surely you’ve worked it out... two girls born in January..  so what did I used to get for my birthday?