Commiserating the Milestones

As I’ve shared previously, Patrick and I are particularly lucky with our mental health, and it’s very unusual – although not unheard of – for us to have ‘sad’ days. But I do find that milestone dates like birthdays (or even half birthdays, a particular favourite of my Dad, for some inexplicable reason) and festivals make me a little more thoughtful, reflective and just generally worse company than on even your average weekday.

Obi recently had his fourth birthday, and it was a bit of a struggle, as these days seem to be. Four-year-olds chatter away, understand games, have friends, and argue with their siblings. They’re getting ready to proudly stand at their front door holding their book bag for that first day of school, and they’re scooting down the pavement to nursery while shouting backwards to demand snacks, before inevitably smashing their face into the pavement because “that’s what happens when you don’t look where you’re going!”.

But not Obi. Obi sits in his pram (although to be fair, he is increasingly trying to Houdini his way out of it) and waves joyously and with boundless energy as people cycle, walk or drive past. Some of them occasionally smile at his smile, but it occurred to me on his birthday that no-one ever waves back. It's not because we live in a particularly unfriendly part of London; everyone always used to wave back to Connie.

They simply don’t recognise that Obi is pouring his heart and soul – and making that little brain work incredibly hard – into waving at them, as opposed to mindlessly flailing about. As that gut-wrenching realisation hit, I couldn’t stop the tears starting to fall.

I pulled myself together pretty quickly (and not just because I know that birthdays = cake), with the acknowledgement that Obi was grinning from ear-to-ear, engaging with people and looking up at me for a reaction, while every now-and-then pausing to reach up for my hand to hold. We always said we hoped he would have agency and build independent relationships, and this is him demonstrating he’s going to be more than capable of both.  It’s not anyone’s fault that mere minutes after they’ve rolled out of bed in the morning, they are confronted with a blurry child’s arm thrashing around, and don’t recognise in the split second of passing by that it’s a wave – maybe they’ll work it out next time. And also, birthdays = cake.

Who’s the party for?

And cake is baked to be shared! As regular readers know, Patrick and I try to celebrate absolutely everything – any excuse to pop a cork – but given Obi doesn’t have any friends of his own, does he really need a birthday party?

The best use yet for that drawer full of Calpol syringes?!

We think so, but honestly, it’s not for him. At least not yet, it isn’t. And I’m not sure it’s really for us, either, because ‘family parties’ are very lovely and we do enjoy getting everyone together when we can, but we could do that anytime. I think we probably do it not for, but because of, Connie; we don’t want her to think that she’s the only one who ‘deserves’ a party, or that Obi is somehow less worth celebrating, because obviously that’s not the case.

But Obi really doesn’t care. He is a very social creature and loves being part of a group, especially when attention is focused on him. When he first started his mainstream nursery at 11 months old, he wouldn’t eat lunch, at all. After a couple of weeks, I asked about the seating arrangement and was told that they fed Obi on his own, away from the group. Put aside the fact that it was just thoughtless, horrible and hurtful to separate him, because as soon as they sat him at the table with all the other kids, he started eating and never looked back – he just wanted to be part of the party.

As a sidenote… it is a bit of a shame that every time Happy Birthday is sung for Obi, he has a full-on, really-quite-rare-for-him screaming / thrashing meltdown. It’s genuinely weird how much he hates the cake with candles and a song; three times we tried it on different days, in different ways – even singing the Hebrew version (which is sung to the same tune) – and three times he absolutely lost his sh*t!

A party’s a party, after all!

But that’s no excuse to miss out on a party. We’ll persevere to mark and celebrate the progress made since the last birthday. And we’ll enjoy the parties, the cake and the fizz as we celebrate Obi, and then when we’ve cleaned up, said goodbye to everyone and sat down with a glass of wine (or two), I assume we will always just take a bit of time to reflect.

It’s not intentional wallowing, this reflection, but I defy you to find me a parent of a child with a condition like Obi’s, who doesn’t think about what could have – or even should have – been. Who doesn’t consider how different their own lives would be if just one tiny little thing had been different (and then immediately feel guilty for even letting the thought cross their minds). Or who doesn’t wonder about the impact on a sibling. Or who doesn’t just wish that their darling, completely beloved little one would call out for them, using actual words. Or whose stomach doesn’t sink when they realise that when their kid is desperately trying to make friends by grinning and waving at passers-by, nobody is seeing him.

We do though; we see it. We see that he can wave now – that was massive for us when he finally started doing it about a year ago. And he’s even started pointing at things recently, which has huge implications for his ability to communicate in the future. And we see that he’s the happiest, friendliest boy who enjoys so much – even when we have absolutely no idea why he’s suddenly burst into a bout of his cheeky, mischievous laughter. We just laugh along, and celebrate the every day with him, being reminded every now and then on those milestone days, that we’re lucky he does what he does – it could most definitely be worse.