As I sit and watch my daughter dedicatedly remove each strand of pasta from her bowl, place it on the high chair tray beside her bowl, eat a couple of them and then proceed to move them all back into the bowl, I am struck with how far we have come.
It seems inconceivable that this time last year she was not even three months old. Twelve months ago she was not much more than a blob who couldn't even roll over yet and whom we were worried would never be able to lift her head on her own.
Yet here she is now, climbing the steps to the slide, feeding herself - albeit with the spoon upside down for the most part -, speaking words only we can decipher and bit by bit, developing a cheeky yet remarkably serious personality.
If people kept developing at the rate they do in the first year of life, we'd all be either;
1) Giants
2) Geniuses
3) Giant Geniuses
Then I think about where I was this time twelve months ago. I was struggling, but had not yet fallen into the darkest place I was going to go. I had no idea how to get my life back while being a mum. The idea of working was unfathomable. Sleep was almost a foreign concept with baby waking every few hours. I was lost in the new Mum haze, desperately waiting for the magical three month mark I kept being told was when things would get better.
Yet, twelve months on, I am in a place I couldn't have imagined possible in those first few months. Somehow I am living my life again, making things work, doing things I enjoy and finding time for myself in amongst it all. Making sure things don't slip again is hard, but we are better at recognising some warning signs of things going awry as a family now.
I guess that's the good side of mental illness. In order to manage, get well and stay well, we are forced to alter our lifestyles and stick with those changes. If I don't get enough sleep, eat well, find time for myself and do things that make me happy, I get very unwell, very quickly.
As long as our work, life, baby balance is in check, everything will be ok.
