Bittersweet 10th Birthday.

My first born will turn 10 tomorrow.  Yes the big 1-0, double digits, having lived a decade, a major milestone reached; ...call it what you may but it has just dawned on me. She will be TEN, no longer a weenie baby, a boisterous toddler, a care-free child, .... but TEN! (OMG!!!!)

I must says I'm a sucker for milestones.  First smile, first steps, first words, first day at nursery, first visit to the library, first day shopping, first ear piercing (which I can vividly remember didn't go down that well), ...but nothing gets me more emotional than birthdays, especially those important ones: 1st, 10th, 16th, 18th, 21st, 30th and then every age thereof that ends in zero!

If I close my eyes and rewind back 10 years; I can still see the moment when I held my daughter, Sumaiya snug in my arms in her woollen blanket,  I can still smell that baby smell that new borns often have and I can still see her beautiful large dark brown eyes staring starry-eyed back at me.  If I close my eyes even tighter - I can see the photo montage of her life right before my eyes. *Sigh*  Right now I'm feeling kind of choked up and can almost taste my impending tears. However, trying to hold back - I need to write this memoir.  

I'm sat in my bed with the comfort of my duvet weighted on my legs while precariously balancing my notebook on a cushion.  I wonder 'Where did the time go?' and 'How the years have flown by so quick?' I can just about recollect the last 10 years; I'd dread to think what the next 10 years would bring and so much more to remember. As the years go on, my brain cells would diminish and I would be unable to retrieve these cherished memories.  Anyway, such is life and that's why keeping a journal is so important.

Earlier today when I put my two girls to bed, I looked around my daughter's bedroom which she shares with her sister, Inaaya and pondered how things have changed.  In the corner is Sumaiya's book stand filled with colourful children's books, her bedding covered with hearts and baby owls and at the foot of her bed hangs an array of plastic beaded necklaces, hair clips and funky headbands that only a child could carry off.  I turned to my youngest who is asleep in the cot bed in what was once my eldest daughter's cot bed.  I smile to myself and remember those nights when I'd wake up to see Sumaiya asleep in the prostrated position with her bottom in the air and that too on the opposite foot side of the cot! Bless her.

Suddenly I'm back to reality and I look at my daughter asleep and the last remnants of her baby face disappearing.  She is almost 3 quarters along the length of the single bed and almost reaching my height (anyone who knows me for my short height knows this isn't impossible!). 

I try to summarise all that she has been through.  She was a petite child, timid, happy, sincere and with a million dollar smile which revealed a distinguishable pin drop dimple on her left cheek and present still today.  After 7 addresses and even more number of colourful specs- she has turned out to be some character and I'm not just saying that simply because I am her mum.  Sumaiya, with us has tolerated moving home 7 times. Living like a nomad is not easy on the parents or the child. As a parent I struggled with working and having a child (any working mum can understand how it feels).  I tried to overcompensate for the difficult times and wanted stability but Sumaiya too felt my tensions and adjusted without a whisper of complaint.  Just as how she adjusted when her younger baby sister was born who subsequently had been taken seriously ill needing heart surgery who now has special needs.  

Sumaiya was four at the time when Inaaya was born. Late nights at the hospital took its toil on our family.  There was one occassion that I hadn't seen Sumaiya for one whole month because I had been in hospital with her baby sister.  Sumaiya walked up to me in the hospital corridor with her scraggy frame and mis-matched clothes (obviously dressed by her father) to visit us. My eye's welled up and my world had already fallen apart with the stress of limbo-ing between life and death and suffering the baby blues. I was about to give up, but that day Sumaiya gave me a ray of hope.  She made me wake up to reality and made me come to my senses without having to say anything.  Just her presence was enough to console me.  Sumaiya needed me in her life and I needed her.

Young children are non-judgemental and positive-minded.  She took on Inaaya's disabilities 'on the chin'.  Yes, as Sumaiya has gotten older; I've had been asked: "Mum, can Inaaya see me?, Why can't she walk?" or "Will she get better?"  Questions which break my heart to pieces but still composed I'd attempt to answer the questions that I don't know the answers to.  As the years have gone by; it didn't matter anymore.  We've stopped asking the questions and my family have learnt to embrace the challenge more.  It has made us stronger and resilient as a family unit. Our abnormal life has become 'our normal'.  We don't know any different and we wouldn't change it for the world.  

Just the other day I asked Sumaiya some probing questions like: "Are you jealous of Inaaya?" or "Do you get angry with Inaaya?"  She simply replied "I'm jealous that she's so cute!" and scrunched up her face and reached to give her little sister a hug and a hard kiss on the cheek.  The fact that Sumaiya looked behind her sister's 'inabilities' was overwhelming for me and a feeling of contentment.

I recall when once we had a family gathering in our new home and I was slaving away in the kitchen (as per usual) and every so often I popped my head in the living room to check on the family and to see if Inaaya was OK on the floor playing with her toys. I stood in the passage for a moment and observed my eldest daughter, nephews and nieces playing on the sofa.  Sumaiya every so often glanced down at Inaaya to check if her sister was OK and continued to play with some unease with her cousins.  You could tell Sumaiya was not fully engaged in playing.  Inaaya was on the floor trying to crawl and suddenly lost her balance and almost hit her head on the floor narrowly missing the glass coffee table - at which point Sumaiya saved her. Her reaction was so swift as if it were an automatic reflex.  I straight away ran up to them (still in my curry-smell infested apron) and took over the situation and gave Sumaiya a big hug for protecting her sister and said: "You go on and play, don't worry about Inaaya; the adults in the room will watch her.... You just be the child that you are." She looked at me bemused and turned to her cousins relunctantly to play.

I realised that Sumaiya's experiences of having a sister with special needs made her not only a big sister having love and compassion but a young carer with unconditional love and always going that extra mile; for that I am grateful to her and so proud of her.  

Sumaiya is my daughter, my soul-mate, my friend, my shopping companion, my little helper, my masseuse and my cleaner (just kidding!).  So occasionally when Sumiaya asks me if she can put make-up on my face or style my hair; I surrender to be her guinea pig model no matter how tired I am, and in all honestly I don't really mind participating as long as I don't look like a clown and don't have to look in a mirror for the end result!

Happy 10th Birthday Sumaiya!  Ammu loves you sooooooo much. Live each moment and enjoy your childhood because you're only a child (and TEN) once in your life. x