Birthday Boy!

Today is my boy's 15th birthday. 15....Fifteen....one- five.....nope, no matter what way I say it, I still can't believe it. Where has the time gone?!

We have had a lovely day.... lazy morning, leisurely lunch and for once Alan was mad keen to open his cards and pressies (Alan is never keen to open gifts...it's like he's kind of wary and suspicious of them) He also insisted there was to be no cake! He doesn't like cake so it would seem this year we are also being denied that pleasure....however all was not lost as we settled for birthday chocolate instead. No complaints from me on that score.

Some visitors this afternoon with more cards and pressies then settled down to watch a new dvd....again a bit of a change as normally new dvds aren't looked at for a few days at least!

It's funny...Alan's birthday is always a day of mixed emotions for me. Whilst I look at my growing boy with a mixture of pride and awe and complete heart-bursting love, there's a little part of me that can't help but be drawn back to 15th August 1996 and the vision of him in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, in an incubator, fighting for his life, while we looked on helplessly, wondering how within 24 short hours, our lives could have gone from utter bliss and sheer excitment at the anticipation of finally meeting our long awaited child, to the dark nightmare we were plunged into when he was eventually born, very still and very blue and very definitely not breathing.

I so clearly remember our incomprehension at seeing our 91/2lb, full term boy taking up every inch of space in the incubator, whilst all around the little premature babes looked so, so tiny and so fragile.

In the 15 years since, our lives have gone down a path that we could never have imagined and what always astounds me is that whilst it's not a path we would have chosen, it is a path that has brought us so much joy, contentment and fullfillment, as individuals and as a family.

Alan's disability has brought us into contact with the most wonderful people who we would never have met otherwise and led both D and I to change careers completely. Of course we have also met a few arseholes less than helpful professionals along the way (any parent of a child with a disability will have crackers of stories to tell about some of the "professionals" they've had to deal with!!!) but they only serve to make us appreciate the good 'uns even more.

So, Happy Birthday my handsome young man.....every day of the last 15 years has been an adventure and I look forward to all the adventures we still have to share.....Love you xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

I tried to get a birthday blip of him but would he pose?? Would he heck!! So you're getting the inside of a rose from a lovely bunch of flowers bought for my by my lovely hubby, for no other reason other than he like to buy me flowers :)))))