The Big One

Isn't this just the most amazing cake???  I would love to tell you it was my own creation but that would of course be a big fat LIE....  It was made by a very talented lady who I just don't think realises how talented she is and I can tell you it tasted just as delicious as it looked.  As you can see it is a toy box with all little animals inside.  The hours that must have been spent making this for our little grandson....  The lid comes off and each of the little animals were made of icing and lifted out of the box leaving the cake underneath.  It was so cleverly made it was shame to cut it. 

We had so been looking forward to the birth of our first grandchild who was due in the November  2018 and of course the knitting needles had been clickerty clackering, the crochet hook had been hooking for all its worth and two cross stitches had been bought and were on the hoop. 

As my DIL approached her 26th week of pregnancy little did we know at the time that our world was about to be thrown into a complete state of flux. Our little grandson Freddie decided that he didn't want to be a the back end of a horse (Sagittarius) thank you very much he didn't want to arrive in the Winter when its dark when you get up and dark when you go to bed. no he  decided he'd rather be a roaring lion (Leo) and make hay whilst the sun shined and arrived 14 weeks early at just 26 weeks gestation and weighing less than a bag of sugar. 

As a parent all I wanted to do was to wrap my son and DIL in a big hug and keep them safe from what may or may not lie a head.   As much as I was worried for Freddie I was much more worried about them as a young couple who were so excited about having their first child and I suppose like most of us you don't consider the things that can go wrong.  

Just that weekend we had been out shopping for bits and bobs for when she would go into hospital including a little out fit for the young sir to come home after his arrival.  What we could not of foretold was just that same evening she would be taken into hospital having been told that her baby would be making their entrance into the world within the week.  

It was with great relief that when he came into the world he arrived kicking and screaming, all good signs.

They got to spend just five minutes with their new baby before he was whisked off to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) .

We take so many things for granted when we are having our babies don't we, I certainly know I did. Being able to cuddle them when ever we want to,  picking out an outfit for them to be dressed in to go home.  All these things seemed so far into the future for them.  To begin with the nearest thing to a cuddle they got was to put their hand in the incubator and let him hold their finger. 

As time went on more small but most significant of milestones were met when they were allowed to have him out of the incubator for short periods of time to give their beautiful boy a much needed cuddle and a time to bond with their baby.   To being able dress him in his own clothes when even the smallest of premature baby sizes were still too big for him to him  graduating from the incubator to a cot

He spent over 100 days in hospital finally coming home just past his due date and from then on he has gone from strength to strength and last weekend we got to celebrate his first birthday a milestone we weren't sure we would get to see this time last year.  

He is now a very plucky one year old who most definitely tore up the rule book before he arrived. Its been a roller coaster of a year for team Freddie but I can't wait to see what you're going to get up to in your 2nd year.

Mx