Despite every good intention to get into a blogging rhythm, life has got in the way in a BIG way, in a good way. This week has been one of those momentous ones and I am only now stopping to catch my breath.

A week ago we welcomed our youngest back to NZ for an Easter break. It was so hard to

wait out that final week. And then imagining his plane winging all the way around the world – although thanks to Flightradar I could pretend the little plane on the map actually had him and his girlfriend in it). Wondering if they  would successfully navigate the perils of LA transit (always a stressful exercise), and then finally get to see them emerge through the arrivals gate. Coming from the English winter they are very pale skinned beings at the moment! They have started to remedy that pretty quickly by an emergency trip to their favourite beach.

If that wasn’t enough to make it a very good week (especially as we kept it a surprise that Sophie was coming as well) all this on the same day our new grandchild was booked to start making his or her way into the world.

Only a week after posting about the fun of choosing a mountain buggy with our daughter  here she was diagnosed with a complication that didn’t affect her but could potentially affect her baby very seriously. This put her on a countdown to being induced early. What a scary week  as she and her husband walked the line between keeping the baby in as long as possible and keeping it safe.

This is when you realise your children(these people that you still worry about whether they can remember to mow their lawns, eat properly or put the rubbish out) have become adults and that they are calmly and capably running their own lives – when they deal with the hard stuff, when things don’t go as they planned, but they stop and take a breath and then go with the new reality.

After a week of blood tests and monitoring, the decision to induce was made and our first grandson was born safely just over two weeks early, on the evening of our son’s arrival home.  I was very privileged to meet him when he was seconds old. And  all of the siblings and their partners were able to meet their new nephew only hours after he was born. (Don’t think delivery suites are set up for large family visits!) What a lot of joy and excitement – a seriously momentous day!

And now there is a new member of our loud and chaotic family. So tiny and perfect, unaware at this stage of how many people love him (he is very blessed to have a big family on both sides), unaware of  besotted grandmothers and grandfathers, unaware of how long he he has been hoped for, unaware that he has already been pronounced “cousin” and gently held by our  three year old grand-daughter.  I am however profoundly aware that he has turned our daughter into a mother, her husband into a father and changed their lives forever.