Another Birthday

It's Jade's 22nd birthday on monday, so tomorrow she and her partner are off to London for a couple of days and then I'm taking her to Latvia on Wednesday for 4 days.
As I've mentioned in previous posts, Kieron loves family birthdays. On Jade's 18th, one o her gifts was a bottle of Britney Spears Fantasy perfume and Kieron decided that he wanted the ribbon from it, to turn into a hair band.

So Jade wanted another bottle this year and it will be bitter sweet and from Callum
Kieron relies on me to get gifts for him and these range from socks to jumpers to make-up for his big sister. He always runs up to Jade with a great big hug for her before thrusting his present at her, calling Callum to join us in watching Jade open everything.
Several years in a row, Jade wanted to go to Lakeside Shopping Centre with her friends as a birthday treat. In 2005 I made the huge mistake of taking Kieron too.
We wandered round and round while Jade wandered off with her friends, getting more and more bored. Kieron was as good as any fed-up 6 year old could be and I kept getting him things to eat, just to ease the monotony. Donuts, ice cream, cakes... he had them all.
We queued up for an hour and a half to see Santa, with Kieron deciding as we reached the end of the queue that maybe he couldn't be bothered to wait any longer. A little gentle persuasion worked and he duly trotted off to get his photo taken and a tacky gift.
When we eventually got home, Kieron made me promise to " never make me go there again please". I promised.
A couple of years later, Kieron threw the photo away: it had been sitting on his bookshelf all that time, getting gradually tattier and tattier as it kept falling down and getting trodden on.
I don't have any other photos of Kieron with Santa and that seems so wrong.