Birthday Girl

I started my blog this time last year when Maisie turned one. One of the reasons I started it was to connect with other parents who had just received a diagnosis and for those whose babies had heart issues. To offer reassurance that everything would be ok..

A year on and I write this blog mainly for myself! I don’t know who or how many people read it but I hope that if you do then you enjoy it and what’s not to enjoy when looking at photos of our gorgeous girl💗 I write for my own mental well being, it lifts me to write about Maisie. And I see my writing as a love letter to her and to my other children, a legacy of  the love in our family to be passed down to the next generation. 

So what’s life like at the moment? Well I can say that Maisie is a busy little girl, she enjoys imaginary play particularly with her dolls and feeding them, putting them to bed etc. She loves me singing and Wheels on the Bus and Miss Molly are her favourites. She’ll join in and use her Lámh signs and will usually want me to sing again. She has her favourite books, including Dear Zoo and recently she started “roaring” like a lion. It’s dead cute and we pretend to be scared when she roars and she’ll do it again and again. It reminds me of when Tom was little and he too had a roar although his one was much louder! 

As far as appointments go we’ve had none recently although that’s not necessarily a good thing. Like many other families in Ireland who have a child with additional needs we struggle to get the services our child needs. Maisie did receive physio from 9months old until 19months old but nothing since through our Health system the HSE. It is appalling knowing that other babies have received even less if any at all. We are grateful for what Maisie did receive and in those early months having a good physiotherapist was crucial for Maisie’s physical development. It involves exercises through play which is what we then did at home. We are fortunate that Maisie has always enjoyed these and she is so interested in everything going on around her that she has continuously come on in leaps and bounds, buoyed by our encouragement at every moment. 

As an infant we noticed Maisie had good eye contact and I would chat away to her but she whilst she would look at me she didn’t make those initial baby noises. Then one evening she cooed at me as I chatted to her in her Moses basket. She did it every evening around 10pm. For fleeting moments I would listen to her precious coos and it gave me the sense that she was a good communicator and she has proved us right. Maisie may only speak Mama and Dada right now but she has lots of sounds and she has picked up plenty of signs (we call this Lámh in Ireland). I completed a Speech and Language course called Hanen before Maisie turned two and it has been a game changer in how we play and communicate with her. And it’s fun, signing is easy and it gives Maisie that little bit more independence. 

So as we celebrate our little girl turning 2, we look back on the last twelve months and are amazed by how much she has accomplished. We are enjoying her so much at the moment and are delighted with how clever, loving, and feisty she is. We don’t worry about when she’ll walk or talk as we know it will happen. She’s enjoying life so here’s to lots more milestones and adventures coming our way in 2023.