On this day sixteen years ago a very special person was born. My daughter Thea.
Today my feed is full of memories of birthdays past, of children’s parties, of roller skates, close friends she still has and others that drifted away
Like the memory of her laughing as our dog Fraggle got on the table in the night and ate half her cake ready for her 8th birthday.
And the year there was a Pukana in every photo, I don’t recall the origins of it, I’m sure it isn’t very PC, but she was very good at it.
There were years we insisted she play football and then cricket like her brothers. She was very graceful in those boots, and she always seemed keen on getting the uniforms, interest waned thereafter.
Most kids at one time or another are fascinated by a particular type of animal, as Thea was with penguins. She got to hold a real one at the time and the bird rescue place named it after her (Mo – her nickname of the time).
Thea was the queen of lock-down, she baked cookies and cakes, she cooked meals, she did Zoom classes for dance
For much of her gestation we were going to call her Abigail, if she was a girl, Theo if a boy - I guess Abby for short - what were we thinking? No offense to any Abigail’s it is a perfectly lovely name but Thea is most definitely not an Abigail.
She is a Thea, a name that is strong, a name of class - traditional without sounding old fashioned. A name that was right from the moment we considered it.
Funny thing is whenever you consider a name for a child you are inevitably influenced by those you know or know of. Thea is an unusual name, I didn’t know any Thea’s in real life and the only one I knew of was Thea Muldoon – I wasn’t discouraged by that despite my rather left wing politics, I think it is a lovely name and it suits her perfectly – funny that. Perhaps Abigail would have suited her as well but I can’t imagine it.
Her middle name is Ardern, not of course named for our Prime Minister – I mean who had heard of Jacinda Ardern in 2006? No Thea’s middle name is Ardern because it was the maiden name of Thea’s Nana Mick, one of four girls who grew up in Te Aroha. Coincidentally Te Aroha is the middle name of the Prime Minister’s daughter Neve – small place Aotearoa.
Thea is so independent and capable but also capable of losing her phone utterly without leaving the house, maybe even the room, and quite possibly more than once in an hour – she has inherited her mother’s gift for not putting things in a sensible repeatable place but opting for a treasure hunt each time instead.
Thinking of Thea made me think about what the world was like when I turned 16 in 1987, what the world was like when she was born in 2006, and how much it has changed in only 16 years since.
The year I turned 16 was 1987 the world leaders were Reagan, Thatcher, Hawke and despite his governments Rogernomics policies laying waste to society a re-elected David Lange.
The Berlin Wall still stood and we lived with a kind of acceptance that at any point WWIII would kick off between the Americans and the Soviets and it’d be all nuclear winters and CB radios for us. Hmm, funny how some fears come back into fashion.
My mates and I got around by pushbike, Rotorua where I grew up isn’t a big place and you could get anywhere you wanted. Uber had not been invented neither had the internet. If you’d have told us you had a phone in your pocket that could show you potential drivers, book one and pay for it and your lift would arrive we’d have said – A phone that fits in your pocket? Pull the other one.
It was the year of the first rugby World Cup, the America’s Cup was still about sailing skill. "Don't Dream It's Over" by Crowded House was the big hit of the year. I was sitting school certificate – which was still a thing. My favourite thing about the year was being in the musical Bugsy Malone put on by RBHS and RGHS, I also represented the school as part of the maths team.
The Black Tuesday share market crash, known elsewhere as Black Monday because they were a bit behind, occurred. In a way it was the end of the 80s, people that had never invested in the share market before lost a lot of money, which was surprising because no one seemed to have considered that prices might go down, a long way down.
On my 16th birthday I went to my cousin’s wedding at the Parnell Rose gardens, I drank more than I ever had before, probably cumulatively, ended up cadging cigarettes from my Aunty Jo, dancing with my cousin’s friends and ultimately throwing up outside. I’m sure Thea’s 16th celebrations will be much classier – we didn’t have social media back then.
Thea was born in 2006 into a world run by George W Bush, Tony Blair, John Howard and Helen Clark. She arrived early morning in quite dramatic fashion at Birth Care on the side of the domain, not that far from the Parnell Rose gardens as it happens.
Now we have a world lead by Biden, Johnson, Albo, and Ardern. A very different world than when I turned 16, or when Thea was born. A world of Covid, of war in the Ukraine, of fake news and of social media.
She takes it all in her stride, this is her time, her world. She will remember it one day with her own child and will think how different the world was back then.
Thea is a champion dancer, jazz, tap, contemporary, musical theatre, ballet, hip-hop, lyrical, she does it all. The house is permanently awash with costumes and props, hair products, sequins, bling and accessories, hard work and lots of laughter.
She has been doing dance classes since before she started school. Actually with the number of hours a week training, taking part in competitions etc it became clear that Thea’s dancing was not really compatible with attending school.
For the last year she has undertaken Te Kura, which suits her well as it can be slotted in around dancing that clashes with school hours or makes attending school on a Monday morning simply unrealistic. She is super organized and well ahead of where she would have been had she stayed at school.
Her mother, the dance mum, and she are inseparable with preparations and comps most weekends. Back to lots of out of town trips again now we’re post Covid(ish) – they’re off to Christchurch for a week next week, Wellington later in the month and a couple of trips to Hamilton and Whangarei thrown in for good measure – yeah school just doesn’t really fit into that schedule.
I spend quite a bit of time going to the local trophy-engraving place to put her name on yet another trophy she has won.
I also get to take her to Physio or acupuncture when she is injured. Laughing along as they say the injury should be rested rather than her compete this weekend or train with her team. Ok, yes I’m with you Doc but let’s be realistic – You, I, and common sense aren’t going to win here against the dancer and the dance mum, how is it best to strap the injury so she can dance through it?
My daughter is brave and strong; she has a dark sense of humour, which I love, excellent taste in music films and books. I sometimes wonder if she was born in the 1940s.
Sometime when I see her dance at a competition or a show it brings tears to my eyes, and her Nana Mick’s. She really is quite something.
She seems a lot older sometimes than 16, and yet in my mind she will always be my Poppa Jack, a nickname she has had since a toddler.
Happy Birthday Poppa Jack.
Thank you for introducing us to your very talented daughter. Your appreciation of her is lovely to see. !The birthday cake story reminded me of my sixtieth birthday when my chef son had made the birthday cake at his house, and put it on a bench to cool. One of his partner's dogs- a very wily huskie, border collie cross got to it and took a big bite out of the side of the cake. My son told me about it later- after the beautifully iced and decorated cake had been cut and eaten. He said he just squared it off with a knife, and the icing and decoration hid any sign of dog interference. lol
What a beautiful tribute to your lovely talented daughter. Happy birthday Thea