(just for the record)

There have been so many new babies
in the Department this year
that my budget for celebration flowers
has been joyfully stretched to the limit.

1.
We know the date and wait for news.
The email arrives:
"I have a beautiful baby daughter..."

2.
They stare solemnly out of the photo,
little French twins, petit pois.

3.
She is swaddled and sleeping.
Her parents looked shocked with sleeplessness.

4.
He is a placid baby
and smiles slowly,
showing two pearly teeth,
when I bounce him on my knee.

5.
I shut the door and make her sit down.
She leans back in the chair beside my desk
and relaxes while I hold the baby.

6.
He leaves the office with Post-It notes
on his jumper
and on his nose
and on his little chubby fingers.

7.
She is very shy...
but she blows me a kiss...
much to the surprise of her father and mother.

8.
He is clutching a miniature Woolly Mammoth.
Not difficult to guess whose son he is.

9.
She is proud of her baby brother
but the lure of the swivel chair
is too distracting to maintain the image
of a responsible two year old Big Sister for long.

10.
Will this little boy,
hiding behind his father's legs,
be good with computers too?

11.
She is younger than me
but is already a grandmother.
I look at the photo of her tiny grand-daughter
and wonder what the future holds for me.

12.
Somewhere in Edinburgh
the newest little Geographer is asleep
on the edge of the world that awaits him.