Twelve year old girls play the role of high society women very well

and High Tea is an exceptionally fine way to celebrate one’s birthday.

Sometimes husbands and fathers make the world’s best butlers (but should not attempt to dance ‘the robot’ in front of his daughters’ friends).

and the hired help definitely know how to work a room (and in this case the yard).

While the high society sup on their tea and scones, the hired help play up… alot.

Good friends and good food make special days even more special.

Working on your feet for days on end is hard and you ache in places you never even knew you had afterwards

but when your newly 12 year old daughter comes to you and tells you it was the best day ever, it’s totally worth it.

Aches?

What aches?

12 is an age when everything changes

and mother hearts cry, just a little,

while they farewell the past

and welcome the future.

When did you grow up?

I see how you’re changing, I see that tomboy disappearing.

I see the woman that you will become.

Kind and beautiful,

sensitive and smart.

Your whole life lies ahead of you and my wish for you  -

as I remember the first time, twelve years ago,

that I held you in my arms,

fell in love with you,

breathed you in,

memorised every part of you

and

promised you that I would be the best mother I could be for you,

that one thing I want more than anything else for you

is happiness.

Be happy, my birthday girl, be happy.

Joyeux Anniversaire! (Happy Birthay in French because Happy Birthday in a posh English accent just doesn’t translate as well).

“Let the wild rumpus begin!” (or the High Tea, which is actually what we are doing today, to celebrate you).

It’s a balancing act, this having a sick baby business.

I mean, juggling her needs with what the family’s are.

Some days it’s easier to do

but other times it is so very hard.

Ivy is struggling.

It’s Winter, what can I say?

Lily turns 12 on Saturday and I have planned to have a party for her - seven friends for a high tea,

there’s football and important after school events,

parent teacher interviews,

Dave, newly back from Japan,

is committed to working long hours

and yesterday,

I had a choice to make.

Admission to hospital, with a cannulation -  because her port has been playing up,

treatment with IV antibiotics, with the hope of going home on the Out and About program (which she was unfortunately taken off last week)

or trial oral Ciproxin again.

Our last trial on oral ended badly but it was enough to keep Ivy out of the hospital.

I didn’t like the side effects  -

the way it made Ivy feel,

the weight that  she lost because it takes away her appetite and gives her insipid diarrhoea

but it kept her away from the hospital and at home

and so, I weighed things up,

looked at all the different balls I had in the air,

the family in an uproar because their lives were uncertain once more,

Ivy unwell but not acutely so

and decided

to trial

the Cipro.

It felt strange, I felt sick to my stomach, unsure of my choice

and this morning,

after a terrible night  of tossing and turning for the both of us,

she with tummy ache and I with heart ache

I realise that I feel as though I have compromised Ivy’s health

and it’s not sitting well right now at all.

Like I said, it’s a balancing act

and sometimes you fall.

“Change is the essence of life. Be willing to surrender what you are for what you could become.”   - Author unknown.

The theme at I Heart Faces this week is  ’celebrating teens’.

Imogen and Madeline have just turned fourteen.

As twins they share everything, the good times and the bad times, friendships made and broken, dreams and hopes.

They share an amazing love.