Happy Birthday Jasmine!

Its official, Jasmine is 1 (her birthday was yesterday)! The day was great and I have had a busy few days, getting presents, baking a cake (organic vegan double layer carrot cake with lemon butter icing and covered in slices of fresh strawberries, yummy), you know the type of thing. She had visitors Tuesday, yesterday, and she will get some more tomorrow. She has been well and truly spoiled! For me it seems this year has gone by in a whirlwind, and yet it also feels as though there wasn't a time that she was with us. The occasion was the excuse for a moment of nostalgia, to look through Jasmine's "keepsake box". It is a box of mementos and has an assortment of items in it, such as all the congratulations cards, her wristbands, a ceramic plaque with her hand and foot prints, from a mould taken of her feet and hands about 3 days after she born, the very first babygro she wore, her "babies first Christmas stocking" the umbilical cord clamp and in a small malachite box the remainder of her umbilical cord that dropped off. (The plan was for this to be buried and a tree planted over it, (to tie her to the earth) by her grandfather in Jamaica, but for one reason and another this hasn't happened (yet). So now I will be adding 1 birthday cake candle. I wonder what she will make of this odd collection when she is older? I remember coming across a small collection of teeth in an ornamental box on my Mum's dressing table. I can't remember if they were mine or my sisters but I thought it was gross. When I said so, my Mum said well they are mine, I paid for them! So much for the tooth fairy. So much has happened in this past year. I have become a mother and Jasmine can communicate, she can feed herself, walk and has become part of a community. (People come up to me to introduce themselves and say "we haven't met yet my name is (xxx), Hello Jasmine". It seems my daughter already has a separate social life and personal fan club. But that is how it should be. Her successes are in some way my successes. I will always represent her past, and Jasmine will always represent my future. I am her teacher and she is mine.