When your parents tell you to appreciate every moment as life is short, when you are young you don’t understand what they mean.  You think life is going to last forever and so you moan about the smallest of things like school, exams, work, boys and a million other situations.  When you finally have a child and cherish every moment, time flies because you are trying to capture every moment of their life and the days just go so quickly while you are wanting it to slow down.

Maisie is coming up to 1 year old now and I don’t know where the year has gone.  You try and forget that they are growing up because you want them to be that small baby that you were able to do everything for.  Now, she doesn’t even want me to feed her because she likes to feed herself.  I think to myself, when did this start happening?  When did she get the confidence to try and take steps on her own, I swear it was only yesterday she was beginning to crawl.  It is crazy to think how quick time can go when you are celebrating your child’s achievements and trying to keep track of keeping them happy and healthy.

I never understood why parent’s get emotional on a child’s birthday because as the child, you just think ‘It’s my day to be spoilt, wahoo!’ A parent thinks another wonderful year with you and bringing you up to the best person in the world.

We are blessed to have such a good daughter.  We receive such wonderful comments about how good Maisie is; how happy she is; how content she seems with everything and it makes me realise, we must be actually doing okay.  It is hard to determine whether you are a good parent or not but these comments make us realise we are doing the best we can for her.  We have it tough, we have no one in Cyprus to help us out, it is completely down to us raising Maisie.  I was so upset when Maisie started nursery but it has helped her massively interact with people and she has lots of friends there. I was upset bringing Maisie back to Cyprus and not being surrounded by our family and friends but she loves it when her family and our friends come to visit. The brilliance of technology these days, I can facetime anyone and she gets so excited seeing them.

We have had many ups and downs and the year has been a roller-coaster but all these experiences I appreciate.  Life is short and we have been so blessed with our little girl.  I never thought I was going to have a child and I was lucky enough to have our miracle.  I am sure I will cry bucket loads on her birthday but through joy.  My parents are even flying over this weekend for her birthday, so I am sure we will have plenty more celebrations.

Maisie had a wonderful birthday party with our friends we have made in Cyprus which we have been very lucky to meet along our journey living here.  Never in my life did I think I would be living in Cyprus, having a baby at 25 and getting married by 26 but what a life I have had so far and I wouldn’t change it for the world.