Wow……. Tomorrow I will be the proud owner of a teenage daughter. I find it hard to believe that I have actually kept a child alive for so long! It’s definitely the longest job role that I have had…… and quite frankly I’m surprised that she still sort of likes me…….. Ruby Tuesday is one in a million. Trenton and I often wondered if she was put on this Earth to test out our strengths and weaknesses…. and possibly to see if she could break us! She didn’t…. but she certainly made us tougher. From 14 months old she was a challenge, but what an incredibly beautiful and happy baby she was. Her first year was one of my favourites….. even though my relationship with Rob was a mess and was destined to end (in fact it did, two weeks after her first birthday) damn did we have some fun. We walked down the main street of Moonee Ponds every day and had baby chino’s as the shop keepers oohed and aahhed over this chubby little blob of happiness. She was very funny to look at, and just like her Mum, pulled the most hilarious faces. (Hence where my nickname “Rubber-face” came from when I was a kid.) Rubes had this amazing ability to make people laugh…. she would go to just about anyone, and even at one year old, the faces she pulled would have you in stitches. The funny thing is, I think that your personality from even as young as one pretty much sticks, because her sense of humour is still exceptionally witty and cheeky now. Although it is now leaning much more towards the inappropriate side of funny! The kid has endured more in 13 years than most will in 90. She completely reinvented herself when she started high school this year, so that no one knew of her disorders. She has even managed to hide the fact that she suffers from severe anxiety 24 hours a day from all of her new mates. I find this an incredible talent. High school is a bitch of a place if you don’t “fit the norm…” and I don’t blame her for needing to do so. I am so proud of what she has overcome. The death of her Dad was something I actually didn’t think that she would survive. Being very “black and white” about everything in life, she told me in the weeks that followed his death that I was to “not talk of him ever again around her, or she wouldn’t survive her childhood.” She was a ridiculously smart ten year old kid…… but I didn’t listen to her. I’m afraid I filled the house with photos of our lives and I talked about him every single day, often hiding in the toliet in between stories of their lives with him to bawl my eyes out…. but I was not going to let those girls forget one thing about him, not ever. I’m glad now that I enforced this. They both speak of him daily, and he comes up in most conversations…… and we have our own little private jokes about how Ruby inherited his disgusting habits and inappropriate humour, and I know that she secretly adores that she did. I have often talked of Ruby’s challenging behaviours in my blogs…. and in a way this is how I coped with them. The fact is, she is not an “easy” child to raise….. but damn she keeps life interesting. I could write a book with the funny stories that she has already given me, and to be honest it is me who wouldn’t have survived Trent’s death without her. She has been incredible….. to both Poppy and I. She is one tough cookie…. and I certainly wouldn’t want to get on her bad side, that’s for sure! So tomorrow I will celebrate 13 years with her in my life, keeping me on my toes, challenging me daily, having me laugh till I cry….. and quite often just making me cry! But she is mine and Trenton’s, and nothing can ever change that now. He always told her till the day that he died, that the best present he ever received was on his 30th birthday when she decided to start calling him “Daddy.” I hope she never forgets that memory. Happy birthday Baby girl.
Mum and Dad. xxxxxxx
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