It’s no secret to anyone who knows me that I love kids. Scratch that, I love well behaved, cute kids. Does that make me a bad person? Hmm. Anyway. Back in 2010 I had the privilege of meeting a then 17 month old little boy who would change and enrich my life in a million ways. This little boy, with his beautiful long eyelashes and baby blue eyes stole my heart. To cut a very long story short, by the time I arrived on the my Australian surrogate family’s doorstep I was more than a little bruised and battered. Physically and emotionally. It took a good couple of weeks for me to feel safe again and Arthur was a big part of that. It’s very hard to feel miserable or overwhelmed when a little person wants to climb onto your lap for a cuddle or take a walk to the park. It’s also very hard to find time to feel sorry for yourself when you start work at 6.30am and your alarm clock is a tiny voice whispering “get up Katy…” in your ear. Children at this age are so refreshing to spend time with. They haven’t yet been tarnished by the worries of the world or weighed down by difficult decisions, or any of the other stuff that makes us hard. They still believe in the tooth fairy and that eating the crusts on your sandwiches will make your hair curly. With kids you have to go back to the basic fundamentals of life – being fed, watered, warm, loved, safe. These are the things that we as so-called grown ups so often let slide, but with children you just can’t. You have to be the strong one, the care-giver, the provider, the protector. I taught Arthur how to people watch in a coffee shop. He taught me so very much more.

Arthur has just turned five years old and is now approximately 7 feet tall*. He may live on the other side of the globe but he will always, always be one of my biggest and greatest Joys.

*I may be exaggerating