Despatches from a mother who started late (and is running to catch up)

Happy Birthday, Mother at Large

Posted by Va-vay (husband of Mother at Large)

Regular readers of this blog will know that Mother at Large has hinted that she is nearing her fortieth birthday. Personally, I have no reason to believe that this is true - I think she has just been trying to reinforce her credentials as an older mum. However, she is now claiming that the day has actually arrived! Just in case it really is her fortieth, you are invited to a virtual party to celebrate. As you'll have noticed, I have provided balloons! Please feel free to add congratulations, encouragement or words of wisdom in the comments section.

Mother at Large's own reflections (posted on the eve of her birthday) follow...

Tomorrow I officially enter Vintage Chick territory with my 40th birthday. Am I bovvered? Well, strangely, no. I follow an inverse logic for milestone birthdays, the older I get, the more I enjoy them. Do other people feel this way? You'd think it would be the other way round, but no, life has got better for me as I've got older. Ten years ago, when I turned thirty, I was on the shelf, childless and without even a boyfriend. I had to work my guts out in a job I didn't much like, doing unpaid overtime till all hours, and commuting two hours daily from one of London's scarier outer boroughs, walking to and from Kensal Green Tube past drug dealers and their victims.

Somehow I've managed to turn a corner over the last ten years - I'm lucky in that I do interesting work, live in a beautiful city, am married to the man I love and we have our beautiful daughter Beanie. I don't always like seeing the bags under my eyes, or fatter belly, but they're a badge of honour - show that I'm a mother now.

I'm realistic. Soon, I'll need reading glasses and will go on Saga cruises. I'll embarrass my family by buying their presents out of catalogues selling gadgets for trimming ear hair, orthopaedic slippers and jam jar openers. I'll splash out on complicated trolley-and-hot-plate arrangements for ferrying food from kitchen to table, and invest in a tartan shopping bag with wheels I push into people's legs, unapologetically, while at home I hoard cupboards of biscuits that would allow me to survive a siege. I'll develop crushes on children's TV presenters and  give Granny a run for her money in Sudoko and crosswords. I might even take up golf - you can't fight these things, they come to us all in the end. But I couldn't be happier. I might even chance my arm and say, yes, I'm actually looking forwards to tomorrow.

Posted 08 November 2007 22:41

Edinburgh Granny Older mother Paradoxes

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