The Gallery: How to celebrate your birthday while pregnant.

It's always difficult to know what to do on your birthday when you are pregnant or breastfeeding.  At least for me, prior to kids, birthdays and alcohol went hand in hand.

My Uni friends and I have a camping weekend every May bank holiday, which is also my birthday. I missed a few due to pregnancies and births, but the year after Mr G was born I was fed up to the back teeth of low key birthdays.  The girls suggested camping in our back garden as I was still feeding the boy who would have nothing to do with bottles.  At the last minute I decided to do something special to thank them for giving up on a more exciting location and hired a tipi. The Cowgirls and Indians theme followed.

I love this shot as my good friend N is so "in role" both as man and cowboy.  There's a kind of moody smoke haze from the chimenea (yep I only learnt that words in my thirties) but easy relaxed smiles of good mates catching up too.

Earlier in the day we staged a cowboy raid on the "Native American village" in which baby G was "stolen".  I have no idea where this idea came from although I have googled this and found a couple of Native American legends about stolen babies, so there must be some kernels of truth in our narrative.  As you can see we stayed in role brilliantly, no one had the giggles and no baby was harmed in the making of this legend.

The wonderful Anji from The Tipi Hire Company came and put it up in the garden, at very short notice, and supplied us with cushions and mats and fairy lights.  Tipis are magical and very cosy, later we gossiped into the night watching the stars through a flap in the roof.  

It was the best low alcohol birthday celebration, although I just remembered hiring a motor boat on the Thames for my birthday while pregnant with Miss L which rates highly too:

Me and Miss L as a bump at the wheel

Mr A

Looking forward to sharing in everyone else's celebrations this week. Why not visit The Gallery?