Florence Turns 3 Years Old

Florence turns 3!

Florence is fast asleep as I tap this caption out and with a day and week of celebrations ahead culminating in a joint party at her request on my birthday on Saturday, I won’t wake her up just yet.

Today is her birthday and my own as a mother of three.

There’s a symmetry between her and her closest family members, a bond that has deepened our existing one and helped us grow. Florence has taught us as much as we have taught her. I was worried about sounding bumptious with my praise here but Florence Catherine Broadbent greatest lesson has been showing up unashamedly as myself in the way only free-spirited, unaffected children can.

I refuse to diminish her brilliance or dim her light as society conditions us to, so share I will. ‘Born old’ as elderly ladies would knowingly comment whenever they spotted us in the supermarket, her in a baby carrier, me navigating a trolley and a queue of Florence’s fans! Mature beyond her years is what the health visitor confirmed.

She can write the first letter or her name: F and is learning to read thanks to her zest for learning modelled by us and a long line of former teachers in the family, especially my Mum, whose bond with her is otherworldly. It’s her emotional intelligence and empathy I’m most impressed with though, the way she comforts her siblings if they fall in sports or when she asks her Daddy if he’s tired, reading others’ cues in ways even adult often cannot.

You can’t trick Florence, she’s too smart for that. ‘Sorry, the iPhone battery has run out so you can’t watch Peppa Pig for now’. ‘I know’ she replies eagerly, ‘We can use your laptop’! Prolific painter, book butterfly (her preference over worms), affectionate daughter, niece and granddaughter and the funniest kid I know, it’s hard to believe she’s only just turning three because my family and I have all lived what feels like several lifetimes since she was born, I think that’s what happens when you’re up most nights as well as days. I don’t mind though, I don’t want to miss a thing .

Happy birthday to our rainbow baby, Florence, I think you might change the world one day! No pressure!