Pancakes on a Wednesday are over.
The special mid week rest day for the new Preppies are over and my baby girl is a full time school girl. Yep…it really is all happening so fast and I am regularly crippled with a moment of panic when on old FB memory flashes up on my phone. I see my little boy dressed as Spiderman (he is WAY too cool for that anymore) and my baby girl with bibs and short hair.
I began the term desperately trying to make our Wednesday’s memorable. After all. This was it. This was the end of our special time together, just the two of us.
And so began the tradition of Wednesday pancakes.
I remember my own Mum whipping up a pancake just for me. I would smear it in jam or bananas and cosy on down to watch a bit of Humphrey B Bear. Mum would be ironing away behind me or peeling potatoes or sewing clothes. I was the youngest of 5 kids and having the undivided attention of Mum at any time was pretty special. I wanted to gift this memory to my own daughter and so for the past 5 odd weeks, little love would wake mid week and ask if it was Pancake Wednesday yet. I am no cook, but we would crack the egg and whisk the mixture and plan our toppings.
But as of this week, our days together are gone.
I am not quite sure how this will roll.
Many of you who know my wild of hair and wild of temperament daughter, would know she is thriving at school. Though my son sits quietly and calmly on the drive home from school, her incessant chatter about Sam and the monkey bars and Mrs G and Poppy in Grade 4 and the song they sung blares throughout the car from start to end. She cannot get enough of it all.
But she misses me.
There have been afternoons when my gorgeously and unfailingly cheerful daughter walks out of school, throws herself on me, bursts in to tears, has a cuddle and then…dusts herself off and runs to the playground perfectly composed.
I guess in her world, I have always been here. Though she did kinder and a little child care, she is still getting her little brain around the fact that I am no longer on tap.
But here is where the lovely tale turns ever so slightly.
She is on top of me from the moment we get home, until the moment I go to bed. Yes. You read that right. She is currently going through a phase in which she wants me with her all night long and it is KILLING me. Oh I want to say how sweet and lovely it is that she wants me so much, and of course it is, but she is following me to the toilet, keeping me in her sights and getting out of her bed all evening long to tell me she needs me. She is at me to come sit on her bed and I am caught between tough love and trying anything to avoid her keeping her brother awake (they share a room).
Of course I miss her, too.
But I really need to have some time with my husband and that evening unwind we all long for. I want the couch and the remote and the phone and my book.
Perhaps she is tired, overtired, wide awake, not being stimulated enough, not getting enough fresh air, anxious, sad, excited, teething…what? Can I still use that one? Let’s go with night time growing pains. Is she going to bed too early, too late, are better curtains required, is she cold, is she hot…??
You name it. I’ve rolled with it.
Feeling a bit like a mummy fail when I hear all those kids who are going to bed (and staying there) at 7.30.
Is it enough to just hope that ‘this too shall pass?’ Will the end of daylight savings mean she will just finally go to bed at an appropriate hour and sleep?
Quite frankly, I am done with the pancakes. If going to school full time is finally going to tire her out, then I will hang up the apron (like I even own one!).
Surely I am not the only one?
HHEEELLLPPPP!!!
I am sooooo behind on my Netflix viewing!
