To Owen who is twooooooooooooooooo

My nephew Owen's birthday so I pop back to weegie. He's the wee blonde toddler with my mum centre stage.

He is delighted with all the attention and despite receiving every Thomas the tank engine product on the market goes straight for a fairly basic Thomas the tank engine ball and cannot be parted from it. That's not strictly true, he belts it all over the place and it pinballs over the assembled family and furniture for the rest of the evening, but you get my drift. He likes kicking balls and watching Thomas the tank engine so the combination is the apotheosis of his wildest toddler desires. He's delighted, as only two year olds can be. Delighted and despotically demanding to play until he drops in a heap and wails for more chocolate cake and sausages. In other words, he's gorgeous.

My family is getting to the size that there's a birthday every couple of weeks now, so much so that my mum is known as granny candles by one grandchild and granny apples by another, due to the constant apple crumbles sourced from the trees round her back garden that are produced especially for birthdays. Owen even tried to blow out the candle he saw on a birthday card so he's had a lot of practise before doing his own.

Despite there being a lot of us, or maybe because, birthdays have a special importance. We always get together with a cake and candles, we always make a wish and sing Happy Birthday followed by Jolly good fellow followed by dumpling doodle aye and hip hips. A whole day of individual attention and spoiling is something extra special perhaps. I certainly couldn't stop my inner 2 year old self enjoying mine recently.

Lovely to see all the grandkids there at once. Jamie, Nyree (with new big cut on her face where she fell over a bike stand. 3 paper stitches, you could see bone apparently. Ouch), Owen, Natalie and even the twin babies Annabelle and Gabriella were there. My brother and his girlfriend are about to add another girl to the gang any day now. He made a brief appearance before heading back to the "mumma bear".

Boring and probably a little twee to have another family blip, but I think it's good to store up nice occasions like this. I appreciate them now and maybe one day in the future when all the clan is older I can show them it. Or.. maybe I'll need to see it to remind me just how cute and gorgeous they all were when they are all sulky disinterested teenagers and I embarrass them.