To my beautiful, strong, inspiring and remarkable friends,
I don't tell you as often as I should as you would assume that I was drunkenly professing love for you (again) but I totally heart you, Happy Valentines day.
Here is my excuse to confess my heady, grateful love for you that will stand the test of time. You have provided me with a constant reminder of who I am when I have forgotten. You have squeezed my post natal tummy into sequin numbers and accompanied me on nights out when you know I needed space away from a place I found frighteningly unfamiliar.
You came round when I doubted my love for my first born and you brought wine and no judgement.
You spoil my children with gifts and time, play with them and love them.
You humoured me when I hosted my own Christmas work party when I didn't work. You came in work clothes, wore your (laminated) lanyards and danced all night to 90's music with disco lights and a makeshift bar in my basement. And the year after that. And then the year after that you attended the 'away day'. We got rowdy and HR had to step in. Then we remembered we were a pretend company and there was no HR so we went home and danced in the kitchen instead.
You come and visit me knowing that we'll drink too much, fall asleep somewhere uncomfortable in the early hours and then be woken up a few hours later by one or all of my kids. You bring lunch when you visit in the day and make me dinner if you come in the evening.
You are busy, responsible working people with full and exciting lives and serious jobs, and yet you come into my living room and make up dances with my 5 year old as if it is the most important performance in the world. If you're not in them then you've watched them. Countless times. You jigged my firstborn around for me. You jigged my second born around for me. You jig my baby around for me.
You have championed my blog, you have championed my family and you have championed me.
They say it takes a village to raise a baby, but I disagree. I think it takes a dynamic group of aspirational individuals like you.
My kids are so very lucky to have strong, fearless females like you to look up too.
So am I.
Happy Valentines Day
xxx