Vilde Rosa; one year old today

Vilde, aka Ninja Baby (because of her tendency to crawl unseen to where ever she can do most mischief) is a charming little troll. She can be devious, even mean, Magne often gets a smack or a scream in the face, and Mette and I get clawed in the face regularly, but usually this is due to tiredness or Magne being pushy in his own way. She is a squat, heavy little thing, much more compact than her brother, but possibly not quite as heavy as Freja was. She likes to play with me, but tends to kick up a fuss with Mette, normal for girls I believe, and she hasn't slept a full night since August 2011.

Its hard to believe sometimes, but I have three children and the youngest is already one year old. I seem to spend a lot of time pondering the significance of this, often when I'm playing with them. How did my life get to this stage so fast I wonder, where are we heading to? Will I see them grow up? What will they be like a decade from now? Can I give them all they need? Love, certainly, but what about security, opportunity, ambition?

I tend to regard them as people first and foremost, not just my kids. Its important I think, not to deliberately impose ones own values. I don't think my parents did that. They more or less let me work that sort of thing out for myself. As long as I did as I was told and didn't misbehave, then there was no real imposition of morality. We were sent to Sunday School, but so were other children in those days and my parents certainly weren't religious. Eventually I discovered that they just wanted us out of the house for a few hours during the week end so they could have sex which is fair enough. Some people sem to think Christianity is bad for your health, but it never bothered me much. I just thought it was tedious.

I once told my RE teacher in High School that I didn't want to do a project about a man who had dedicated his life to helping lepers because that was boring. I was hoping there was some other project I could do, referably something involving Roman soldiers, but no. The RE teacher was a Christian and he went ballistic. How dared I mock the sacrifices made by the leper helper!? I was sent back to my desk in shame, but the truth was, it was boring. I ignored the project, accepting that I'd get a poor grade and spent the class oggling the girl with big breasts who sat behind me (Lovely Rita Johnson, I had such a crush on her, but it was all for nothing).

What I wonder is, could my children become religious perhaps, and if they do, what will I think? They could. It happens.