I officially received the acceptance letter for my baby to start school next year. Is it so wrong to be wildly excited? Is it just not ‘motherly’ to have broken out an insane amount of the red dancing lady emoji in all my recent text messages?
Is it a 4 year old (pardon me, 4 AND A HALF!!) thing to get to a point when you are both really ready? She definitely needs more than my ‘let’s draw a picture’ craft activities, and I need more than two minutes without her demands for food, the playground or constant dressing and undressing of her dolls.
For those of you who don’t really know us, my daughter is light filled. She glows from within with laughter and boldness and absolute delight. Her little flip can switch in the blink of an eye, however, and her defiance can be terrifying. I can see her teenager years ahead, and I am battening down the hatches.
But her sweetness….she runs through the house to kiss me better if I hurt myself, she cries in Frozen when the parents die at sea and she told me the thing she is most excited about starting school is seeing her brother everyday.
Of course, then there is the redundancy. My redundancy. The fleeting moments of reality when I foresee the moment that I am ‘no longer required’. My diva is an all or nothing kinda girl. If she loves you, she loves you intensely, and her teacher will be her new BFF, whether s/he likes it or not. I watched the other day as we arrived at Kinder and she run up and threw herself into the arms of her carer who had been away on holidays.
I loved it.
And I hated it.
Who was this woman who had my baby’s tiny heart?
She is my second child. And my last. When she heads off with her oversized bag and an actual ‘big girl’ uniform, what does my heart do in school hours?
Look….don’t worry; I am planning with feverish excitement all that needs doing and precisely how I will reclaim ‘me’ and ‘us’, but my rebranding does not come without fear and a pang of loneliness.
Because who else will tell me that the public toilet we’re in smells like chardonnay? Who else will lovingly pat my rounded tummy in public and ask why it’s so pretty and squishy? Who else will I have to share my joy of K-mart shopping? Does this mean I will finally eat my own marshmallows with my hot chocolate? What is it actually even like going to the toilet alone? Could I even possibly have a sick day when I am sick?
As I fill out the paperwork, I do so with a racing pen…and a lonely heart.
