One

Baby is one.  Not in the cryptic pub quiz sense of “a kola is one but an oak tree is two.  What am I?”  Or in the Ooo-she-is-a-One sense but in the much more regular and highly predictable she is now one year old sense.  Apparently this means she is no longer a baby.  I am not entirely sure what she has become.  She doesn’t look very different to the baby self of yesterday but if there’s one thing working at the food processing cum pest control factory has taught me it’s that labels are important.  Since she resolutely refuses to move off her increasingly fat arse, “Toddler” is inaccurate.  Equally, there doesn’t seem to be a widely recognised noun for “infant who is too clever to move, realising that if she remains stationary the world will come to her.”  She is not a child because she doesn’t have a mobile phone or a pending exam.   She doesn’t own a tattoo, miniskirt or pair of heels so that discounts “teenager.”  And mercifully she isn’t eligible for a credit card or National Service so we’d look a bit silly calling her an adult.

Actually I suspect that even when I ‘m on the verge of Pushing Up Daisies and S has long established herself as a Grown Up and done all sorts of things that I wouldn’t, she’ll still be My Little Girl and I’ll be ludicrously proud of her. As it is, today we’ll content ourselves with singing “Happy Birthday” while she beams gloriously back.  We’ll worry about labels another day.

Comments

[Mrs RW]

Happy belated birthday, Scarlett!! Carlton, you should be ashamed of yourself referring to her darling little posterior as a "fat arse"!! When she grows up to be bulimic/anorexic we'll all know who to blame!

[the boy who likes to]

Happy Birthday to S.

[Caryl]

Happy Birthday Scarlett! She's looking more like you every day, but with more hair. She's lovely though. And how many toys did she get that Daddy wanted for himself?

[Daryl]

Happy Birthday Scarlett!

[LondonGirl]

Happy Birthday indeed. She sounds to be sufficiently intelligent to have worked out how to have mum and dad on toast. Good on her. Now just take her to toddler groups where there are hot boys and she'll be toddling across the room to meet them before you know it.

slight flaw in the plan is that that would set your blood pressure alight, no?

Tee hee... the pleasures to come.

[Carlton]

Thank you all. I know Little S would have wanted to reply personally but since she can't reach the keyboard yet, I'll have to do.

Mrs RW - I never said her fat arse was a bad thing! It suits her very well and I'm sure that as she grows it will naturally assume slimmer proportions!

Caryl - S wanted a train set and car jack. I'm simply looking after them until she can appreciate them.

And LondonGirl - she's already developing a healthy attitude to boys - if they get too bothersome, start pawing at her or stealing her toys, she bats them in the face. Quite right too.

And thanks again.