Today is Fiona's 6th Birthday. She came rocketing into this world in the time it took Simon to undertake a school day. The day she was born, we sent him off to school in the morning knowing that today was the day (Funny how once you've had one baby, you just 'know' stuff - no wonder people thought women were witches ...)

I called my midwife at 10AM, met her at the hospital at 11AM and had a 9 1/2 beast of a girl on my chest by noon. 

Fiona doesn't mess around.

I didn't do much for her 1st birthday - because she was my second and, quite frankly, I went back to work when she was 5 months old and somehow the logic of "this baby doesn't know what day it is so sure won't remember whether or not she had a birthday or not"

Then 2 months later she went and got cancer. Figures right?

All of a sudden I started wondering if that birthday - the first one, the one I didn't really do anything for, the one we FAILED to celebrate or mark or really make any effort for - was also going to be her last.

Here we are now a little less than 5 years from that day, almost 3 years from the day she relapsed after her 3rd birthday and 2 1/2 years from the day we took our shot in the dark and rolled the dice with a bone marrow transplant. 

All of these things deserve a celebration. All of them. The good and the bad deserve to be marked somehow. I think we mark milestones because eventually you run out of them - and then there are just the memories; You make the memories by marking the milestones (mmmmm alliteration....) 

All of this requires effort and sometimes - often times - it's difficult to find the residual effort left over to make something special for someone else. To mark a milestone for them and to create a memory for them or of them - Despite everything that has happened I still find the effort overwhelming. I am a full time working parent which means I am basically tired all the time. I don't have space in my margins for everything I want to do - to write, to hit the gym, to read a book, to get my nails done (I am literally walking around with nails that look like I work in a field all day) to take my kids to the movies, to participate in a charity event, to organize a golf tournament and on and on and on...

But I do it. I make choices. Sometimes I make great choices and sometimes I just lay down and douche on my phone for an hour. But I am getting better at it - I am getting better at marking the milestones because always the back of my head I wonder if and when this milestone might be the last one. The last birthday or christmas or easter egg hunt or trip to the cottage. I don't allow that thought to override all the choices I make, but it would be a lie to say that it doesn't occasionally motivate me sometimes...

And here we are. The morning of her 6th birthday. This morning the memories will consist of a school-day, early-morning party in my kitchen with a LOT of streamers (Simon helped) some presents, a crown (obvs) and a 'custom' breakfast of sausage and croissants. 

It's not much but it's something. And that's what matters.