Since her birth, many of our friends and family have been wanting to come and visit little Lakshmi. Kavitha wasn’t ready and no one knew her new address. So last weekend, when Huw was working long days, Kavitha decided to come and spend the time with us. So we had a sort of open day and informed everyone who had expressed an interest in seeing the little one. I picked both of them up last Friday and brought them home. I had a couple of cases to do on Saturday morning and by the time I got back the visitors had started to come. Little Lakshmi was on her best behaviour. She always is. She only cries when she is hungry or needs a nappy change. However her routine got a bit disrupted and she couldn’t sleep much on Saturday and apparently even during the night.
Thomas, Lakshmi’s uncle and my nephew, stayed the weekend and kept us company. Lots of visitors came on Saturday, and the rest came on Sunday afternoon. They came bearing gifts and some even brought food. Lakshmi has a wardrobe full of clothes now. Her mother started buying clothes before she was born and I think that even if she wears one dress a day she will not be able to get through all the dresses by the time summer is over or she grows out of them, whichever comes first. Nowadays there is so much choice. The dresses come in all sorts of colours and patterns and are the cutest designs you have ever seen, with their matching accessories.
When Kavitha was a baby, the choices were limited. She was a winter baby as well. So it was a good 6 months before she could fit into a summer dress. In those days ‘baby grows’ were all plain and came in a white, baby pink, blue, pale green or yellow shades. There were no patterned ones.
I was working at Queen Mary’s Hospital in Sidcup when I was pregnant with her. It was my first anaesthetic job. One of the consultants I worked with was Dr Ostelere. There were only 3 junior SHOs in those days and I was Dr Ostelere’s favourite trainee and I liked working with her as well. Dr Ostelere is married to a very famous author. His pseudonym is Richard Gordon of the ‘Doctor in the house’ books, which was made into a famous Hollywood movie and later TV series. He came to visit the Hospital once, but it was on my day off and so I couldn’t meet him. Before I went on maternity leave, Dr Ostlere bought and left some baby clothes for Kavitha. I never got a chance to say thank you to her. By the time I rejoined the department two years later she had retired.
How life has changed in almost thirty years. I wonder how it will be by the time my great grand child arrives.
