Day 139

14th June 2022

Birthday Girl

At 4am in the morning 9 years ago, we left for the hospital.

I was having contractions, and they were becoming spicy!

When we arrived my midwife said,

“If you want a waterbirth you better run the bath, you’re 7cm dilated!”

I lay in the warm water, under candlelight, moving in & out of contractions in dead silence to Erik Satie’s Gymnopedie No.1. (Lincy was born to the same piece of music).

Watch Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMnxjdGTK4w

After 1 short hour, baby Mila Josephine Butcher was born, underwater at 5.06am, weighing 8 pounds even & measuring 53cm long.

Her waters didn’t break which is really rare, so they tell me.

This little girl burst into our lives and hearts.

Today, she turned nine!

She was SO excited to be nine.

“I’m a tween!” She declared with pride.

After a scavenger hunt around the house for her presents, we had pancakes (of course), only today we added sprinkles. 😂

Here she is playing on her gymnastics beam. We need to find a permanent home for it, but for now, it’s in the garden.

At 7am I had cakes in the oven.

We were headed to the park with our Tuesday crew.

The sun was out. The wind had buggered off, and it was perfect!

Gotta love the kick back on the flying fox! 😎

When we got home Linc had his computer time & Mila received a b’day delivery!!

It was a netball hoop!!

Dad was stoked to have one last job to do when he got home from work. 😏

I wasn’t planning on making them do any ‘learning’ today because it was Mila’s birthday, but before we knew it, we were in the middle of biology with a nest making session.

We found a nest outside and wondered how birds make such a solid structure without opposable thumbs.

We watched a YouTube video on how nests are made and discovered bird nests are actually made from two nests.

The first is a robust structure and the inner nest is made of other birds feathers, and soft materials.

We tried to make our own nest, to see how we measured up.

It was really hard!

Mila’s was way better than mine.

When we finished, we put them in the tree and plan to watch them in the coming weeks to see if anyone moves in. 🤞

This was the nest we found when cutting back the passionfruit vine in search of a good netball hoop spot.

Looking for rainbows in the hose spray.

After this, we hit the shops to spend birthday money sent from Nana & Grandad in London & a gift voucher from our friends Roman & Jentzen.

Exciting!!

“What do you think you will buy Mila?” I asked.

“A blobby, some kicks, a boost juice & some sushi.” She replied immediately, needing no time to think.

“Do you really want to spend your birthday money on food?” I asked.

“Mum, I’m a little girl who just turned 9 and these are the things I want to buy.” She protested.

How could I argue with that?! 😂

We didn’t find blobby.

Instead, she bought a Squishmallow whom she called Silvia, a mini gum ball machine (with gum) and a new pair of rainbow boots.

Rainbow boots – a 9-year-old’s dream come true! (And yep, she’s still wearing that new top on the daily).

She had to wear them right out of the store and was so happy, she agreed to go to the gaming store so Lincoln could drool over all the new games.

At bedtime we had floods of tears when we couldn’t find Skye the Squishmallow.

Mila remembered leaving her at the park. 😭😭😭

She has made me promise to return tomorrow in search of Skye.

Fingers crossed!

Missing – Skye 😢