Birthday

Little Seymour Number Two has turned nine today.
Nine years old! Unbelievable.
I can’t help but think back to where we were nine years ago, and reminisce about that time. It was quite a contrast to the way we are living now…

Nine years ago, Big Seymour, Little Seymour Number One and I were living in a gorgeous converted barn, with acres of land and bathrooms aplenty. We had a living room the size of the Isle of Wight, and more parking than you could ever need.
It was rather nice.
We moved in as a family of three, and moved out as a family of four, with a very chunky, growly little she-bear of a baby, a mere two weeks later.
Sadly, the barn was only a temporary home. We rented it for a fortnight, whilst waiting to complete on the purchase of our own house – the Other Funny Little Bungalow.

On the day we moved in to the Other Funny Little Bungalow, it was rather a shock to the system. Not only had we left somewhere we’d rather like to have stayed, but the new house didn’t feel right. It was dark and dingy. It smelled of stale air. It was unloved.
Then it snowed, and to finish me off, Little Seymour Number Two decided that she was going to be a colicky, sleep-allergic newborn. That was not anticipated.

There were times when both Big Seymour and I wondered if perhaps we shouldn’t have sold our other house. It had three toilets, a conservatory and everything was lovely.
Or perhaps, given that we’d just gone and increased our mortgage, we might have been better off selling, but buying a park home outright, with no mortgage at all.
Oh, the freedom!
Instead, we looked around at the new home we’d chosen, in which our furniture looked silly, and gritted our teeth; it was going to be OK, we told ourselves stoically.

Back when we’d viewed it, the Other Funny Little Bungalow had charmed me. There was a special feel to it. It had been looked after. The old couple who’d lived there hadn’t moved out because they didn’t like it. They had moved out because they’d died. There is something rather lovely about a dwelling that serves its humans until they no longer need it. It’s fitting, somehow.
And there we were, now moving in with a brand new wrinkly baby, fresh off the production line and just starting out. The contrast between occupants old and new would frequently enter my head when I felt frustrated or tired. We were like the Goonies – this was our time now, sleepless nights and all. It made me grateful, even for those.
That bungalow was our home for six and half years. Despite the mixed emotions I can remember when we moved in (which, I am sure were largely hormone-related!) we quickly grew to love that place, and Big Seymour worked his magic, breathing new life into the tired old walls. Spring came, and we settled in.
Little Seymour Number Two continued to be a bad sleeper for quite a few months, which was not enjoyable, but any hardship I felt was soon put right into perspective when in April of that year, the Fritzl case came to light. I quickly stopped feeling sorry for myself after that. I looked at the grass and the sky with renewed appreciation, and found ways around the sleep issue.
And now that baby is nine! She had a splendid long birthday weekend, and despite our home not really being fit for a party at the moment, she seems to have enjoyed herself. She made book hedgehogs at her beloved Brownies on Thursday, had a school trip to London on Friday and then on Saturday, there was the obligatory jumble sale.
I was in two minds whether to take them all this week, but when I suggested that Big Seymour might like to come too, he surprised me by saying he would. He stopped frenziedly digging a new water main for an hour, and off we went…
Suffice to say, I shan’t take him again. He came home with ten times the rubbish that we usually do, including a broken kettle, two uber-tight T-Shirts that might have been OK in the nineties and a pink baby’s slide that we couldn’t really fit in the car. We don’t even have a baby, ffs!
Anyway, the Four Little Seymours love a jumble. And it added to the birthday frolics.

On Saturday night, Big Seymour and I actually went out for a meal, and the Four Little Seymours had a very special babysitter. I had to chuckle when I came home to find a score sheet from a game they’d all played together whilst we were out, and the first name recorded on the sheet was Brown Owl’s. How cool is that? Not only did Mummy somehow manage to get Brown Owl round to babysit, but she also brought her lovely daughter along too. I don’t think Boy Seymour could believe his luck when The Lovely Aimee read him his bedtime story, and in appreciation of this, he only played up a little bit. 😉
To finish off her birthday weekend, today, Little Seymour Number Two has treated us all to a day out at a local children’s farm, after she won a family pass in a painting competition before Christmas. All six of us spent a few hilarious hours on the bouncy pillows, the toddlers’ ride-ons and the soft-play area. It was a welcome break from house stuff. But Big Seymour, who likes to keep busy, still couldn’t resist putting up a few curtains in the shed when we got home, in readiness for the big evacuation next month.
(Oh, I do hope it’s warmer by then!)

It’s hard to believe that we have been living in this Funny Little Bungalow now for nearly three years. Little Seymour Number Two was only six when we came here. Once again, we left a renovated house with Big Seymour’s trademark three toilets – a house we grew to love, to do it all once more. And on a much bigger scale…
Why? It’s just what we do. Although the Four Little Seymours and I are all planning to try to stay in this one a little longer than six and half years. And as I’m sure Big Seymour has enough to keep him busy until all Four Little Seymours are wanting to do more than visit soft-play centres for their birthdays, we won’t be going anywhere in a hurry.