Special Delivery

Christmas came today! Either a little late or super early, depending how you look at it! Exactly one month to the day that I should have been opening my Drake-family Secret Santa present, it arrived in the post. It was worth the wait!! Let me explain.

Some time ago, around about the time that certain gorgeous Drake babies began arriving and turning what was already a rather large family into something about as epic as the Lannisters, we decided Christmas was getting a little much in terms of present swapping. So we thought it'd be easier of all the adults in the family only had to buy one gift for one other adult in the family. That way everyone could save their reserves of money and energy for spoiling the children :-) We have a 'Secret Santa App' (how very 21st Century!) which each year emails you to tell you who you have to buy a present for. Then, we exchange these gifts when we all manage to get together (usually Boxing Day). It's great and works really well.
This year mine wasn't quite ready on Boxing Day and today, it arrived. Of course by now I knew who it was from, by process of elimination. It was actually brilliant to get a belated present in miserable January. My Secret Santa, or Adam has he's known to us, smashed it out of the park.
By now you have probably guessed it had something to do with Elin or I probably wouldn't be sharing it here. Adam had spent hours formatting this entire blog and photographs into a book. A beautiful, stunningly made, hard-cover book. Featuring everything I have ever written about Elin starting in 2009.
Wow. Just wow.

"Mum Making Lemonade Collected Works 2009-2017"

I can't believe I get to read my whole blog from the start in print instead of on a screen. The way Blogger works makes it quite difficult to read the blog in order, it's something I've never done (and never had the time to do). I'm so excited to read things I had completely forgotten about. I know there will be little achievements of Elin's, things she has overcome, hard times and amazing times that I have not thought about in years. It's literally Elin's whole life in a book, a record of every significant event this far.

This is one of the many reasons I started the blog when she was 12 months old. I didn't want to forget anything that happened, bad or good. I treated it and still do of course as a diary, which I guess is all a Blog is really. To now have the first 9 years of Elin's life in print sitting on my coffee table is a dream and something I absolutely never would have got around to doing myself. I know it must have taken so much time and thought to create. Predictably I did A LOT of ugly crying when I opened it and will probably do a little more as I make my way through it.

It has really also helped to remind me why writing is so important to me. With this book I know I'll be able to see the incredible arc of what we have been through with Elin over the past few years, from the immeasurably difficult to the breathtakingly wonderful. It's really, really, helpful to remember that sometimes. Now I have the first 9 years of Elin's life chronicled to treasure forever. No computer crashes or inability to use a laptop in my old age will stop me being able to reminisce about the incredible life of our miracle girl. That is priceless.

I hope Adam is ready to create Volume 2 for me in another 9 years time!

I'm a lucky girl and an even luckier Mummy. I think it's one of the most thoughtful gifts I have ever received.

Thanks, Adam.

Merry Christmas :-)