A long time coming

Monday was our granddaughter A’s five birthday, and it was a long time coming. In fact, it has been coming since A. started talking about her five birthday around the time she could first say her numbers and have some notion of what birthday meant (a special day, a day with a decorated cake and candles, a day they sing to me, a day with a number attached), perhaps around her three birthday. A. is the kind of person who thinks ahead, and she could always tell us what kind of cake she wanted for every birthday right up until her ten birthday.

We missed her first birthday, the day she was born, her zero birthday, because we were on our semester break while L. made photographs in the Louvre and the British Museum. So we first learned of A’s emergence into this world of air when we managed to talk to T. from a pay phone in King’s Cross Station in London. It was a huge moment for each of us, tears in our eyes and voices in that noisy train station, as our beloved older son told us of the momentous event of A’s birth, our first grandchild, and of how well her mom was doing after the ordeal. So A. was now out and looking around with her curious and puzzled eyes at the world the rest of us inhabit.

We also missed her one birthday a year later. This time our semester break took us to Egypt, and we thought of A. and her first birthday while we were there. Since we couldn’t be there for the big day, we took a lot of pictures of our trip and made a birthday book for her, A’s book about why her grandparents couldn’t make it to her birthday party.

The next year was her two birthday, and we made sure we were there, even though it was a difficult physical adjustment coming back to Canada in the coldest part of the winter. By this time A. had become a huge aficionado of grilled cheese sandwiches, and her birthday treat was going to Salty’s down on the waterfront where they served her a truly great grilled cheese. It was a fine celebration of a very special girl on a very special day, her two birthday.

While we were working in Istanbul, A’s birthday always landed in our two-week semester break, and the next year, the year of her three birthday, we were travelling again because we knew it was our last year overseas. So in 2008 we were camping in Oman near a turtle beach the night before a strong sandstorm, talking about our darling A. and her three birthday and the fact that once again we were missing it. There are some stories I haven’t yet written for her from that trip, the story of the turtles laying their eggs at night, the story of the little mouse at night, probably a gerbil, jumping up under my camp chair where I was eating a cookie, and the story of the baby turtles hatching in the morning sun and trying to make it to the ocean. I think I’d better get them done while the memory is still so fresh – they can be a late three birthday present, and maybe she’ll be able to read them herself!

We celebrated her four birthday last year, but this year was the big year. Her five birthday meant that A. was old enough to start at big school, and it seemed to be the one where she felt really and truly grown up. She said that what she most wanted was a surprise party, a hard thing to manage when she is already hoping for it to happen. However, T&S did a great job of making arrangements for us all to show up at Hatfield’s Farm for a sleigh ride pulled by two beautiful Belgians, huge and capable horses, with bells on their harness under a blue winter sky. And the other thing, planned by A. for years, was the Barbie cake, which T&S carefully designed and built for her and smuggled onto the sleigh for the party in the bunkhouse.

So A’s had her birthday and it was a great one. Our girl is now five, and T. says she has been a little puzzled the last few days about why being five doesn’t feel more different from being four. She is growing up and she is a thinky girl, and we’re all pretty lucky to be around her for her birthdays and her everydays.