Welcome Flower Child: The Magic of Your Birth Flower

Every year on my birthday my mom would take my baby book off the shelf and tell me the story of my birth while we flipped through the pages. There were lots of photos of her at the hospital, me at the hospital, me at one and two and three months old. A tendril of hair from my first haircut taped to one page. There was also a page that had a list of months, and their corresponding “birth flower.” Each flower had a special meaning associated with it too: friendship, harmony, grace. Something about having your own special flower really stuck with me. When the opportunity arose for me to suggest a book idea with a “gift” edge to it, I brought this to my editor as a concept: each spread of the book will be a month, a flower, and a little poem to go with it. A poem written just for the reader who was born in that month, to remember how special they are. Oh, and there will be fairies. Lots and lots of fairies. It is another book of mine that was so lovely to sink into and create, to just be in that little fairy world for a while. It brought me back to such lovely childhood memories of days spent playing outside in the garden, digging in the dirt and watching the bugs and making flower soup and pretending to BE a fairy.

For a very long time I was not sure that I would have children of my own. I thought about the pros and cons, and tried to logic my way around the question from every angle. It wasn’t until I was working on this book, imagining writing all these poems to my own possible future baby, that I arrived at my answer. While I was drawing the page for June – with the mother fairy tucking her little babes into the petals of a blooming rose – I suddenly thought “well that’s ME, I’m the mama in this picture!” 

Now I really am the mama, and I get to read the October page to my twins:

October’s children truly care,

live to comfort, heal and share. 

A friend who knows just what to do,

Loving others is easy for you.