New beginnings

I’ve taken rather a longer break from the blog than I had planned, but summer’s over now and things have changed quite a lot in my world.

A few weeks ago, my son started school. The baby of the family, all grown up and ready to start his journey into the world of learning.

Boy, was he ready. Five years old, with a big sister he looks up to and longs to be like – reading and writing and just, well, knowing about stuff.

Since I’m pretty sure we’re not having any more kids (that’s what happens when neither of the ones you have learn to sleep properly until they are two), it was with a heavy heart that I started the preparations for school. Uniform, school bag, lunch box, tiny little school shoes…I had to try very hard to keep the emotions from rising as we enjoyed our last few Fridays hanging out together.

I’m not the sort of mother who hates to see her kids grow up and wishes they would stay babies forever. Far from it. As I’ve already mentioned, neither of my babies particularly liked being babies. They’re far, far more fun now they are up and about in the world, throwing themselves into everything at great speed and volume. And, if truth be told, I didn’t really like being a mum to babies either.

If only I’d known as I lifted them screaming from their cots for yet another night feed how wonderful, beautiful and amazing it would be to answer their wide-eyed questions about birds and clouds and supermarkets and biscuits and banks and cartoons and farts and record players.

If I had realised when they refused tiny spoons of time-consumingly prepared goop that they’d soon be eating pakora and pineapple and home-grown tomatoes and hummus and candy floss and popcorn and asking for more stovies with beetroot, I wouldn’t have been so anxious for the food throwing to pass.

I thought I was simply not cut out for motherhood. Too controlling, too desperate for order and calm to ever enjoy these little creatures that I grew. I felt disappointed. Muted and muffled. Subtracting the misery of early morning rises from the joy of a night out to see if the remainder was worth the effort.

I felt I was not living my life, but someone else’s. Clock-watching my days, these tiny little bosses demanding yet another hour of overtime in exchange for nothing more than fifteen minutes of snatched sleep in front of yet another episode of Thomas the Tank Engine.

But, sure enough, they passed through the breastfeeding, teething, weaning, screaming, pooping, tantruming and began talking, walking, sharing, laughing, playing, asking, singing, wondering and marvelling.

Those looooong days at home together began to get shorter as we filled them with baking and making and building and finding things out. I began getting back more than I put in. The balance was restored.

I know now that I am a good mum. In fact, I am the best mum, because I am their mum, and we all belong, we fit together like a perfect puzzle.

I will miss my days with the bundle of noise and action that is my little boy. But I look forward to sharing all the joy he has ahead, as the world opens up to him with every letter he learns.