Although Daughter Dear has run a countdown the entire month, I’m almost startled to realise that it’s been ten years since she made her beleaguered entrance into the world. That she’s closer to leaving home for the big, wide world than she is my little baby. That she’s closer to getting a license. Voting. Having her heart broken.

I can’t believe I’ve been a mother for ten years. What a wild ride it has been! Hairy and terrifying for the first half, exhilarating and intoxicating for the latter half. DD has made it through hell and back: needles, tests, drugs, more drugs, experimental drugs – and come out fighting the other end. Triumphant, even. Welcome to double digits, petit chou!

On your tenth birthday, baby girl, I want you to know this: you are my inspiration, my joy, my love. You are the embodiment of fierce, and beautiful, and everything that is good. You are sassy and irreverent. Your curiosity knows no bounds. I love that you love books. I love watching people flock to you, because you include everyone and make people feel welcome and safe around you. Your manners are impeccable. Your ability to navigate your way around London astounds me (especially when you seem to know all the secret passages around Camden Market!). I love your quirky sense of humour. Your ability to burst into dance whenever the mood strikes you (often on a crowded platform). I love watching your face light up when you tell a story, hazel eyes dancing with glee or outrage. That I just have to see your face after a long day, for my world to be right again. That I can’t wait to chat with you, and hear about your day. I could list so many more wonderful pieces of you, but they wouldn’t ever equal the sum total of YOU.

If someone offered me the option to ‘engineer’ a baby, it wouldn’t have come close to the perfection that is you. So for every day of the last 3653 days of my life (that’s how old you are), my flawed self feels humbled and awed and blessed that I get to be your mother. I will never stop feeling like I won the lottery.

Happy birthday, my precious! May you have many, many more.

❤ Your cray-cray mama