Weekend and all that stuff.....

Another weekend filled with kid-related activity.

Before I start to moan about how exhausting it is to have three small children, and I'm afraid to say that this had been the intention of this post - a familiar theme of my blog, I'm sure you'll agree - I need to announce Harriet's third birthday. While this is hugely significant for her (chocolate cake with Smarties and "cangles" or should that be candles??), it is enormously significant for me too.

Three years ago I was visiting my tiny premature daughter, born at 32 weeks, in the Special Care Baby Unit. She spent her first days hooked up to tubes with an oxygen mask strapped over her impossibly tiny face. I had just come from another part of the hospital having had a scan to see if the cancer had spread from my chest into my abdomen. My prognosis was poor and my first dose of chemotherapy was scheduled for the following week; and after that I was facing the best part of a year of aggressive in-patient chemotherapy, a bone marrow transplant and radiotherapy. My other two small, small children were waiting for me to come home.

I am increasingly bemused to think how I managed that time from moment to moment. I know I spent my days, and nights, waiting to die. And I never, never, never thought I'd be making Hattie a cake on her 3rd birthday here in May 2011. She had a party with all her family this weekend. And along with singing, "Happy Birthday to you", we all quietly toasted my health too.

I'm not out of the woods yet - I have to get to her sixth birthday to throw the mother of all parties. I'm planning one too. It'll be my 45th birthday just after her 6th. On my 40th I was still very unwell, so a party was not really in order. But if I'm here on my 45th - and I'm more confident than I've been for the past three years that I might just get there - we're celebrating in style. I'm already saving for the holiday of a lifetime for Roger and I.

It's good to look forward - I can tell you.

So - luckily for you, I'm not going to moan after all. I'll save that for next time!