Thursday 23 January 2014

Girls and boys ...

A rather belated Happy New Year to everyone!

I'm very pleased to say, 2014 has started off well for our family, with the arrival of Grandchild Number Six - Eloise Jessica, who was born a few days early on 6 January.  It's always exciting, and lovely, to have a new baby to cuddle and to watch them grow and develop their own little personalities. We've certainly had plenty of that over the last few years!  Our three daughters now have two children each, and all six have been born within four and a half years.  We feel very blessed and fortunate that we had three healthy and perfect children of our own, and now have six healthy and perfect grandchildren, close enough in age for the siblings and cousins to play together and (we hope!) grow up as close as our girls still are to each other.

Having had no sons ourselves, we are very used to little girls - which is just as well, as five of the six grandchildren are also girls! It goes without saying, none of us (parents or grandparents) minded one iota what sex any of the babies were - but it has been somewhat surprising that Noah, the first of the six, who was four in September, has turned out to be the only boy. (Perhaps I should add 'so far'???) If the genetic background of our own family was responsible, it would be more understandable, as my husband was also the only boy in his family, with three younger sisters. But I've always understood the baby's sex is determined by the father's genes and has nothing to do with the mum's family!

Well, Noah is really good with his two year old little sister Kitty, as well as with the other two year olds - his cousins Caitlin and Alice - and now the two babies - Eva, who's now six months old, and new baby Eloise.  I hope he'll always be as kind and protective to them all as he is now, and perhaps his reward will be - one day in about 10 or 12 years' time - getting to know all their friends! 

And as I grew up with a big brother myself (and two of his mates were among my first boyfriends when I was a teenager), I should add that the five girls might well, one day, be fighting each other over Noah's friends!  But ... let's not think about any of that, for a long time yet. I actually hope they'll stay children for as long as possible. Kids grow up far too fast, don't they!

Growing up together