A Ray of Sunshine

Gloom and despair were blown away this morning with some really pleasant news. By the Lord Harry we need some positive  evidence that the world struggles on in some semblance of normality. And here it comes.

In a civilisation being overwhelmed with single- mothers, babies being aborted, economic wreckers wanting us to power our toasters with solar panels,  men wanting marry men, cats and dogs sleeping together etc etc, into the Tavern comes a Lady with Children and a husband.

I say children. And that's what we got.  LOTS of them. All in one family. Sitting, crawling, running around on the Patio.

None of this declining populations bizzo, but heterosexual fecundity walking proud.

And get away all that talk of 'immigrants' ruining the place. The Mum who brought them all in is Half-Jamaican.

A happy normal woman.

 

My mate JJ Ray brought her to our attention:

One can only feel sorry for "liberated" women.  My son was conceived because his mother decided that she "just wanted to be a mother"  -- despite already having 3 children.  I was delighted -- JR 

I did not have such good fortune, m'self. My son and daughter's mother was not quite so keen. But at least she produced two healthy new human beings.

But this lady deserves a medal. Her husband too. We won't get to hear from him much. The poor bugger has his work cut our supporting them all.

Tripping over four pairs of glittery pumps in the downstairs hall, I stumbled into our playroom only to be greeted by squealing laughter and an overpowering waft of nail polish. 

Tiny toes were being painted a kaleidoscope of colours and lashings of lip gloss indelicately sloshed onto sticky pint-sized pouts as three of my daughters immersed themselves in playing ‘beauty salon’.  

Upstairs I could hear the roar of a hair dryer competing against a One Direction CD, while back in the playroom, my six-year-old Helena was ordering the customers of her toy sweetshop not to touch the little lollipops on the plastic shelf without ‘paying’ first. 

Chaos? Yes. But for me, nothing out of the ordinary. For years, my house has been girls world central. With six daughters, it’s a place where bedrooms are a blizzard of fairies and Barbies and the bathroom is crammed with scented soaps and sparkly hair bobbles.

Maxine Irving had six daughters before she gave birth to son George.
 
George joins sisters Olivia, Alicia, Isabella, Lucia, Helena and Tallula

 

But suddenly, in the middle of this explosion of femininity, I catch a glimpse of powder blue. My gorgeous, chunky baby boy. George. My precious longed-for son — a baby boy born after six girls.  

My son. I still can’t believe I can say these words. I never really thought it would happen. I pinch myself every morning when I scoop him from his cot and gaze at his little boyish face. I thought we only did girls. Girls who came one after another, all gorgeous and much loved, but none of them, well, boys.  

I admit now I was prepared to keep going until we had a son. And if it meant we ended up with a houseful of girls, which we did, well, that was absolutely fine. 

It’s not that I haven’t adored having daughters — I love all the girly shopping and baking, the softness and companionship. But as one arrived after another, part of me felt a deep, desperate yearning for a boy, fuelled in part by the fact that my husband Jamie didn’t have a son — someone he could kick a ball with in the park, go to the match with, pass on the family name to. 

Whenever friends who had boys would say they were taking their sons on, say, a ‘lads and dads’ camping weekend I felt —what? — envy, sadness, longing. 

I desperately wanted a boy and my husband Jamie longed for someone he could call ‘my son’. 

But as baby girl followed baby girl, it seemed that having a son was a mere dream. That is, until September 4 last year, when the world turned blue and we were finally able to use the boy’s name —George — we’d chosen so long ago.  

Every time I fell pregnant, the name had been there, ready to use if the baby was a boy. And each time it was quietly set aside as we welcomed another gorgeous little girl into our home. How long would we have to keep going until we could use it? 

And there’s no question that our girls — Olivia, 19, Alicia, 14, Isabella, 8, Lucia, 7, Helena, 6 and Tallula, 3 — are gorgeous. They each have the perfect mix of my half-Jamaican background and their father’s blue-eyed blond genes. 

But we ached for what seemed to elude us. It wasn’t helped by the increasingly ‘disappointed’ reaction of friends, family and people we knew.    

It’s amazing how people just say things without thinking.  

Hah ! Tell me about it !

We stopped getting ‘Congratulations!’ and started to get ‘Oh, not another girl!’ 

You’d think something terrible had happened. It hadn’t, but in truth every new arrival only served as a reminder of what we didn’t have and what we so desperately wanted. And how I would have to keep going if I was ever going to be in with a chance of having a son. 

I stayed in hospital for only six hours. It had been an easy birth and I wanted to get home so that George could meet his big sisters. Their reaction was electric as they clamoured round him, squealing with delight. They couldn’t believe it. They kept saying: ‘We’ve got a little brother.’ They were as shocked as we were. 

Nothing prepared me for the reaction from friends and family. Our five-bedroom semi in Timperley, Greater Manchester, was transformed into a sea of blue — from sprawling flower arrangements and baby presents to the huge balloons heralding the arrival of our own little prince.  

Having this little bundle of blue among our brood was just incredible. The girls couldn’t stop fussing over him. And Jamie and I would just sit there looking at him.  

As a tiny baby, apart from the blizzard of blue that had invaded our house, things weren’t that different. (Well, apart from nappy changes — I wasn’t prepared for the projectile wee which goes everywhere as soon as the nappy comes off.) George had no choice but to fit in with our girly household.  

With so many children, we do our best to make sure order and routine prevail — from sitting down round the table to have dinner together at night, to homework, and systematic bed times. George was simply timetabled into this. 

But as he gets bigger, I’m really beginning to feel  

the ‘boyish’ impact he makes.  

For a start, I’m used to girly appetites. 

Then, the other day, the family sat down to their Sunday dinner only to watch in awe as George reached out for one roast potato after another. 

The toys are changing too. We’re buying football nets for the garden and George now has his first train set — though he seems just as happy playing with the girls’ dolls! We’re also going to put up a blue play house in the garden to sit alongside the pink one. 

Jamie loves tumbling about with him — the girls always seemed too delicate for that. And as he does so, he keeps calling George ‘my boy’ or ‘my son’. 

I love shopping for his clothes, from tiny jeans to crisp shirts: in fact I’ve already bought him a smart shirt and tie for Christmas Day. After years of careful bulk buying frocks or passing down clothes for the girls, it’s such fun to pick out outfits for my son. 

Everyone keeps asking if I’m calling it a day now on the baby front.  

Well, I do feel fit and healthy — I jog a few miles a couple of times a week to keep in shape — so in theory I could carry on.  

And Jamie has joked that he’d like a little brother for George.

 You can read more about this delightful lady and her crew at the link below. She was not able to stay for long. You know how it is when you have so many kids pulling you away.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2478590/After-SIX-GIRLS-meet-longed-baby-boy-Britain-Mothers-joy-baby-George-completes-family-following-years-yearning.html

What an absolute delight.

I had to go down to the Cellar to the Grail Crypt and give thanks.

May the Good Lord continue to shower this family with Blessings.

Pax Dei.