My baby is five, and still cares for me..

Got that Nina Simone song in your head yet?

The Pumpkin is five, taller, thinner, has a new haircut, and is almost ready to be 5 himself. There was a great outburst not long ago: I want to be 4 forever, tears, inconsolation... It turns out he's sure he can't go to His Christine anymore, and will have to stop sucking his thumb when he's 5. Yes I know.....So I reassure him, often for days... that it's not a line to cross over just like that.

And today on his birthday, I see him and wonder if in fact, it is a line: I'm viewing him differently. A great piece of my work is done: the outside world will have him, with school and all. I know we took him to Cork and all those other places in Europe - and the USA and then Samoa two weeks ago for good measure. But. He most looked to me for what's what in the world. And his dad, the Leathermanman.

We went to the beach early, then home to play with great new toys, and had a fire in the back garden at the end of the day. Last year, he asked for pizza for dinner, and got it in our small apartment, with special friends in the autumn. This year it was dumplings with his godparents, who had cycled over on a warm evening. So we had Asian pork dumplings, stir-fry greens with oyster sauce and BBQ duck around the fire. Oh we're back in Australia all right!