Starting Big School

When I first began writing this blog, I had just given birth to my twins. I was struggling through a fog of sleep deprivation, twin nappy changes and random of explosions of bodily fluids, both theirs and mine. This was fertile ground for blogging, it was easy to whip up a funny post about attempting to deal with feeding, burping and not accidentally dropping tandem babies on their heads. Add to this the antics of my then three- and five-year-old sons and hardly a day went by without some blogworthy escapade.

Since then six years have passed and the day-to-day business of rearing four boys is no less exhausting, but paradoxically it seems to take even more time than when they were little. There are no nap times during which I can escape to the keyboard to avoid the siren call of the washing machine and now they are all at school shockingly it appears I have to make some vague attempt to earn a living. The latter of which is proving more than a little challenging, as the call for a jack-of-all-trades writer seems to have faded to little more than an vanishing whisper torn away by the hurricane blast of digital media.

But it seems somewhat unfair that while I charted the early years with such dedication,  now that my children are getting really interesting I am silent on the matter. Particularly as this week marks a huge  parenting milestone as my oldest started secondary school.

My goodness what an emotional few days it has been. We have been working towards this day for the past two years. Thanks to a very poor choice of location (oh the shame for one so devoted to Kirstie and Phil ) we ended up living in a house that was in the catchment for just one secondary school, which had just shut down its sixth form due to lack of interest.

This meant that we were caught up in the whirlwind of exams and tests to see if we could win that golden ticket to a selective school. It seems as if we have been tutoring, revising, sitting tests, waiting for acceptance letters forever, yet, at last on 2 September, it was finally time for him to go to his new school.

He dressed up in his new blazer and tie, a massive change from the sloppy polo shirts of primary school and before me stood an impossibly handsome young man. A quick scroll through my Facebook page and I was confronted with legions of little children who were suddenly all grown up as everyone posted the obligatory first day of school photos. Where had all the little urchins with unruly curls, chubby cheeks, untucked shirts and gap-toothed smiles gone? Overnight they were transformed into smart, independent almost-teenagers.

On day one of school I was eased in gently. I was allowed to drive my precious boy to school and give him a quick kiss before he disappeared into the crowd of blazer clad pupils. Day two and the plaster was beginning to rip off, but I could still walk him to the bus stop and wait with him to make sure he got on safe and sound.

Day three and, ouch, the plaster is off! I had to watch from my doorstep as he trudged down the road, PE and book bags weighing him down, off to catch a double decker London bus all on his own. He was grinning at his independence, while I had come over all neurotic and kept shouting randomly that he 'Wasn't to speak to strangers' and to 'Remember to look both ways when you cross the road'. All things I have drummed into him for over a decade, but suddenly it seemed imperative that he shouldn't forget all the rules that I pray will keep him safe in the big, bad world.

Parenting is such a roller coaster of an experience. On the one hand you count the days in the lead up to every milestone. When will they sleep through, walk, talk, start school, finish school? As each new phase rolls around we are filled with pride that we have made it, that things are going to plan. But equally every achievement is tinged with the blue hue of nostalgia and the fiery red alarm of fear.

Of course my son needs to go to school alone. He needs his mummy to let go of his hand and allow him to forge his own way. Of course I am proud that he is coping so well and happy that he is enjoying this new experience so much. But deep down there is a part of me screaming that I don't want him to grow up, I want to keep his sticky little hand firmly clenched in mine forever. I want to wrap him in a double layer of cotton wool so nothing can ever hurt him. I think that as a mother you never really manage to tamp down that overweening protective instinct, you just learn to gag it for fear it might suffocate your beloved baby.

So this week marks a big step forward for both me and my boy. For him he is making his first strides towards independence and for me I am inching my way towards letting go. That said I cannot wait to hear his key in the door and I will continue to engulf him in a bear hug the moment he gets home, no doubt long after he is happy to reciprocate. After all I have made it clear to him that a mum's primary function is to embarrass her children, and I wouldn't want to let him down!

Saying goodbye to primary school

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.