Wee wan's birthday

One of my sentimental kiddo posts again, for tomorrow the Wee Wan reaches her double figures, turning 10. I've been uptown shopping for some little gifts, and on the way back dropped into the Ron Mueck exhibition at the Scottish National Gallery. The particular giant sculpture that had most impact on me was this- 'A Girl'. The huge face, the crushed features, took me right back to wee wan's birth.

The labour ward was full that night, so I wasn't allowed any proper pain relief. You're not allowed opiates in the pre-labour ward, even if you're in labour. I made it to the delivery room just in time to puke, scream and push her out. It was a palaeolithic birth, and I would've been better off, as it turns out, to have delivered alone at home or in the fields for all the help I got from the NHS. In fact, one student midwife complained to me that night about the flux of mothers, and all those babies selfishly and fecklessly conceived, presumably in drunken hazes, over Xmas and New Year celebrations.

And there she was, 'una regazza!' as my mum said from Italy that night. I was hoping for a girl, because I'm a daughter of a daughter of daughter back to Eve, and felt I knew instinctively about being and raising such. Mueck's sculpture reminds me how when born, the child is bigger than she will ever be- a realm of plastic possibilities and paths, that only becomes narrowed with learning and time. They're nothing and everything at that time, a world of possibilities. Luckily in the wee wan's case she became modest, kind, independent, sassy, clever and imaginative, and is currently writing her first book.