Birthdays and proms
Friday 16th March 2012
Today, Lily is 16.
How?
Really. How?
It seems impossible that the tiny baby who was born 16 years and 2 hours ago is now 16. That I am about to drive into town to meet her for coffee. That tonight we will go out for dinner.
The day she was born and many of the days after but especially that day, is so clearly etched into my memory it seems too fresh and close to be 16 years old. How can such a vividly real memory be any older than a week or a month?
There is a big age gap between our children, 7 years. This has been a great blessing, though at the time, when it seemed that Florence would be our only child, we didn’t think of it at all. But because Florence had almost 7 years of Lily-free childhood, she did have an awful lot of pretty close attention and un-shared parent-time. Then when Lily was born, Florence was a very caring and able older sister, a great help to me and a play-mate for Lily. This closeness has inevitably been tested – 2 sisters with 7 years between them have far fewer shared interests that maybe sisters with only 18 months or 2 years to divide them. I don’t know as I have no sister. I wish I did, much as I love my brother.
Then when Florence was older, about 14 and above, we had a baby-sitter. We still do, it is really lovely that they can stay here together when we want to have a cycling weekend or something. And Lily has been to stay with Florence, in Exeter.
On the other hand, we’ve been clear through the parent-cycle twice with no overlap. But I am glad, now, that it worked out this way.
Here are the jumbled birthday candles:
Instead of cake Lily wanted a birthday trifle. The cream was whipped stiff enough to hold the candles up for 1 rushed verse of Happy Birthday To You:
These were then popped out and the snowy cream was decorated with silver baubles. I love the wax on the creaam. And then Mark and Lily had a huge bowl each for breakfast. No, not me, I have inexplicably given up sugar for Lent. This may account for the grouchy nature of the next paragraph.
And tomorrow, we go shopping for Lily’s prom dress. The advent of the prom in British schools is deeply regrettable in my view, with its stretch-limo images, fervent shopping, beauty rituals and strange girl-woman dress codes. However to resist this tide is to mark your own child out as a freak. I am told, by Lily. It is bad enough that I am sometimes glimpsed by Lily and her school mates from this village on a morning run as they await the bus into school. That I hash-tag on Face Book, the mark of a true loser. That we are even
friends on Face Book. It’s all shaming. To be denied full prom-rites would be the last straw, the final act of cruelty. I told Lily that in my day, myself and Aunty Kay were quite happy with a barn-dance in the school hall and a bottle of Fanta. Wearing dresses our mothers made. Kay may have made her own, she is very good at that sort of thing, but mine were made by my mother. Gales of derisive laughter. Oh yes, of course, how much nicer to pile into a super-elongated ‘hummer’ (?) and spike each other’s feet with stilettos as you clamber in and out in clouds of net and hair-spray. My big fat Bridgwater Prom…
Somehow, 16 years ago, it was so much simpler.
Instead of cake Lily wanted a birthday trifle. The cream was whipped stiff enough to hold the candles up for 1 rushed verse of Happy Birthday To You:
These were then popped out and the snowy cream was decorated with silver baubles. I love the wax on the creaam. And then Mark and Lily had a huge bowl each for breakfast. No, not me, I have inexplicably given up sugar for Lent. This may account for the grouchy nature of the next paragraph.
And tomorrow, we go shopping for Lily’s prom dress. The advent of the prom in British schools is deeply regrettable in my view, with its stretch-limo images, fervent shopping, beauty rituals and strange girl-woman dress codes. However to resist this tide is to mark your own child out as a freak. I am told, by Lily. It is bad enough that I am sometimes glimpsed by Lily and her school mates from this village on a morning run as they await the bus into school. That I hash-tag on Face Book, the mark of a true loser. That we are even friends on Face Book. It’s all shaming. To be denied full prom-rites would be the last straw, the final act of cruelty. I told Lily that in my day, myself and Aunty Kay were quite happy with a barn-dance in the school hall and a bottle of Fanta. Wearing dresses our mothers made. Kay may have made her own, she is very good at that sort of thing, but mine were made by my mother. Gales of derisive laughter. Oh yes, of course, how much nicer to pile into a super-elongated ‘hummer’ (?) and spike each other’s feet with stilettos as you clamber in and out in clouds of net and hair-spray. My big fat Bridgwater Prom…
Somehow, 16 years ago, it was so much simpler.
Lily 16 – crikey where has the time gone. I’m with you on school Proms, and I did love our barn/folk dances more than the later discos in the cricket pavilion. Birthday trifle for breakfast – yummy. Kx
hope you both had a lovely time celebrating both prom and birthday!
I have two sons – 16yrs and (just!) 19yrs! and when we went down to Uni-digs to see no.1.son for his b-day we said exact same thing: WHERE did the TIME go? remembering him being born! bringing him home! having his brother some 2yrs later! but what about the middle, how FAST did that go?
(I blame secondary school/11+! from then onwards its fly by time!)
Happy knitting Sue xx
Hope Lily had a lovely day. I can’t believe she is 16 either!!
Hope you are all ok – I celebrated Lily birthday 16th March with my crew from work by going for ‘Afternoon Tea’ at The Savoy Hotel in London. It was wonderful. Love Janet xx
Jan that sounds amazing! Yes, Kay, I agree the folk dances were excellent (did you make your own dresses? bet you did); and Sue: yep, school years/terms make the time warp-speed past you…sadly. One minute they are being stars or Mary-with-the-Baby – and the next you’re prom dress shopping… X