As usual it’s been a while since I’ve
updated this blog. It seems that while the early years of babies
and toddlers
are rich in anecdote, as children grow up they become less ripe picking grounds
for funny stories.
But one thing I have noticed, that appears
to be a constant with children, is the aching wrench I feel when we reach a
period of transition – at least with my firstborn.
I can still remember driving away from his
first nursery, my eyes blurred with tears as I sobbed, filled with nostalgia. I
remembered his first day when he clung to me as the nursery staff attempted to
interest him in water play or the sandpit, but all he wanted was mummy.
I remember his best girlfriend with whom he
would share the rich pickings of the dressing up box. I still have a picture of
him holding hands with her, resplendent in a beautiful fairy dress (him, not
her). We still see this precious friend, but she too has long outgrown
dressing up and is fast becoming a beautiful and clever young woman.
You see almost a decade separates these
pictures of my blonde haired, blue eyed, pink and squidgy toddler from the boy
who is my son now. Rather than leaving nursery he is on the brink of leaving
primary school, and like generations of mothers before I wonder ‘Where did that
time go?’
What was I doing that the years have
whizzed past like the blur seen from the window of a speeding car? Was it
really not yesterday that I had to pluck him from neighbours’ driveways as he
dashed into explore their front gardens on our walk up to the shops? Since he
perched on top of the bump that would become his baby brother?
How is it that the memory of walking up to
school, his sticky little hand in mine, his head not even reaching as far as
my hip, begging to stop every five
minutes to look at some fascinating piece of debris on the street seems as
fresh as the Year 6 Leavers Disco that happened just yesterday.
It is a piercing pain, the ache of
nostalgia. Most of the time we just carry on, living life, doing the shopping,
the school run, nagging about homework and hardly stopping to drink a moment of
it in, but sometimes life stops us in our tracks and forces us to see how fast
our children are becoming adults, how little time is really spent enmeshed in
the experience of childhood.
As you will have gathered my firstborn is
just about to leave primary school and everyday activities have taken on a
sharp poignancy in the face of this step. He has come home with a bag stuffed
full of schoolbooks that will never be written in again, he has acted in his
last play, danced the Macarena at his last disco, had photos taken with friends
who may or may not last the distance once they no longer spend every school day
together.
Next week we will do our last school run
with him and eventually close the door on his first school forever.
I feel the tears begin to flow as I write
of these final moments. It has been such a journey for both of us, from him
clinging to me outside the Reception classroom, in tears because he so hated to
leave mummy, to the tears shed at the end of every year as he would miss the
teachers he had come to love.
There have been school trips that have
taken him away from home for the first time, tests and exams that have begun to
set him on the path towards his future, friendships forged through shared
experiences. I have made friends amongst the mothers of his contemporaries and
will miss their smiling faces at the school gate.
There have been ups of great achievements,
and downs when friendships have gone sour or mistakes have been made. It has
not been a perfect experience, but it has irrevocably changed both our lives, and
for the most part for the better.
I try to feel happy that my precious boy
has had such a positive experience during his early school years, but I am just
so sad to say goodbye to them. I think it is all part of not wanting to see him
grow up and inevitably grow away from me.
In my head I know he needs to learn to
become independent, but in my heart I long for the little boy who clung to me
for security. It’s the classic dilemma for any mother – do I let go and let him
grow or do I cling on because the letting go just hurts so damn much?
Of course I know the answer and, as I bought
him his first blazer for big school, I felt my heart swell with pride as I caught
a glimpse of the gorgeous young man he is fast becoming. I know he needs to
leave behind the beginning of his childhood and move on to discovering who he
will be as an adult, but as a mummy I know sometimes I miss my little boy so
very much.
So next week when the door finally closes
on primary school forever, I shall equip myself with hankies, a phone with
plenty of memory free for pictures and I will make that last walk, holding my little
boy’s hand as we exit the gates of primary school together for the very last
time.
