Blueberry and banana muffins

Today I have enjoyed the delights of blueberries popping as I bit into the muffins my daughter made, and shared them with my pixie of a granddaughter, a child I never thought I would see and for whom I have a close affinity. We not only look alike, at least as I looked as a child, slender and rather fragile, but share the same brittle bone condition. I am determined she will not suffer the same fate as myself, being defined by the condition and limited because of it.
She is beautiful, as most children are, with an impish look and temperament that closely replicates her mother's and therefore the ability to give masterclasses in tantrum and sulk. That they will clash is all ready evident, and I have had to mediate, but Pixie's fire gives me hope that she will give a good account of herself and not be any one's fool, unlike her grandmother.
There is so much character in the sideways glances and snatched looks, beneath luxurious eyelashes, and an ego that finds itself already struggling with the physical limitations and immaturity of being two years old and wanting to delve into every nook and cranny. I see the individual differences in interaction between her and mum and dad. As they pass each other, Daddy says "Hi" and Pixie responds in the same tone and pitch, they nod to each other, each mirroring the other. With Mummy there is the same unforced response but, for me, the bemusing sight of a mini me and her grown up twin - the same volatility and passion mixed with a great tenderness. The ability to evoke both great love and exasperation.
Given the headlong descent into apparent self destruction that characterised Mummy's teenage years - there came a time when she was nineteen when I resigned myself to the possibility that I would lose a child young - I had given up hope of her living into her twenties let alone that she would ever be a mother.
She was never going to have children, she couldn't cope with the competition, particularly of a daughter, and felt she would be a terrible mother.
The truth of course is that not only is she a very good mother but has found a depth of maternalism that has astounded her. She has almost literally given her life to deliver her children and, sometimes, works far too hard being SuperMum.
I pondered all this while trying to prevent Pixie from getting blueberry all over herself, it stains so tenaciously. It could be a metaphor for the deep embedding of Pixie into my being and the brio she spreads as freely as crumbs and juice.