It's not often I tap the boards around these parts but today I am here... This post, well it's not really for anyone - in fact, it's just for me.
Today Sproglet turned 18.
It's a day I almost could never imagine. When I started this blog, when he wasn't even 2, I was in the trenches of Motherhood. Those long long days where between 7 am and 7 pm, I was chief cook, cleaner, entertainer, leader, wiper, talker, bather and everything in between. The days felt so long and lonely at times I wasn't quite sure how to cope. How to fill the hours keeping a toddler amused, educated, stimulated. The days when you never seem to have one fat second to yourself. Even toilet trips are a duo event. Oh to wee alone you think as your child brings you toys while you try to work out how you're going to insert a tampon without horrifying them.
Those years felt looooooooong. I suffered from PND about a year after he was born. I raged, god I raged at how no one had ever told me JUST how difficult it was to essentially single parent (husband worked crazy hours) and survive. I felt at time trapped - not by my son, because I loved the very bones of him - but by the expectation that motherhood would fulfil every last drop of me. I felt such aching guilt that it didn't. That I missed who I was, before my life was overwhelmed with routine and Iggle Piggle.
Then all of a sudden he was 3, then 4 and my god that was just wonderful. Chats, movies, play parks, all became that bit more accessible. His sister was born and then I was back in the trenches again. I had tasted freedom, but that was out of reach for a few more years.
Cut to summer 2014. I'd just left my job, determined to become a writer and a more available mother. I took my kids to York and out for the day to do all kinds of fun tourist stuff. Sproglet was 7, Sproglette 3. It was brilliant. In that moment, in the Railway Museum, I felt wildly alive. Everyone wasn't going to piss their pants. We all could eat in a restaurant without having a tantrum. It was enlightening. A turning point.
Then came the sweet spot.
Oh the Halloween parties I threw. Stuff of legend, even if it's only my legend. I became a master of stocking fillers. There were a blur of playdates and endless kids' parties - barely a weekend passed without going AND DROPPING OFF kids at some event or other. Sports - SO MUCH football. Holidays and visits to mates and fishing in the stream and building dens and movie nights and lockdown and it all went by in a flash. It is like once kids hit school, life is on fast forward.
Until one day you wake up and read your diaries about turning 18, in the Crescent bar in Belfast... And you stumble downstairs and sing in a croaky voice, thick with emotion 'Happy birthday' to your ADULT son. And you go to hug him and he seems more interested in hugging the dog. And your eyes well up and you think - did I do it all well enough? Did I give you the tools to be happy in yourself? To know that you are enough and you don't need great grades or top jobs or material success to make me love you? That the best thing you can do for yourself is be kind to yourself and that voice in your head - make sure it sounds just like your best mate talking to you... Did I give you self confidence and the ability to understand people? Did I encourage you to have a curiosity for the world, for people, for life?
Motherhood felt so difficult to negotiate. The delicate balance of being oneself but at the same time, putting the needs of someone else well before my own. I'm so glad that I took some time out when they were both small, to be there until they were 2. That as much as it has been a fecking nightmare finding work that complimented motherhood (perhaps the biggest challenge I ever faced) - I got there pretty early - in 2014. So I've been lucky enough to be on the school pick up and be around when they trudge through the door on an afternoon.
If spring is the baby years am I in the winter of motherhood? The time when I must hibernate my owns needs and wants for him and let him be... Stand back and watch to see how he gets on, without parental stabilisers?
It is bittersweet. If I look at a photo of his chubby 91st sentile face, all huge peepers and chunky legs, I feel this ache - can almost smell the milky sweetness of his head, as I would lay him down in his cot. Now I come downstairs to see enormous ridiculously expensive trainers at the foot of the stairs and I breathe a sigh of relief - he's home after a night out. All is ok with the world.
It goes by in a heartbeat. I used to hear that phrase all the time. It never felt like a heartbeat - the long nights of feeding in the first 12 weeks; the potty training - my own Vietnam - and the endless endless homework helping/jazzy jar making/football kit washing...
But it's true. I raised a child to adulthood. Now it's over to him.
Thanks Sproglet because the truth is you taught me far more than I could ever have taught you. Happy 18th.
The world is yours....
