The Husband and I went away for a night last week, so my mum came over and stayed at ours.
When I was arranging this, I realised how much has changed, how much older the kids are now.
In days gone by, I’d have popped to see my mum to run through everything, or left her a long and detailed note! This time, I didn’t have to do a thing.
The kids can get themselves to and from school, they know what they need to pack and arrange for themselves and they both called and messaged me so I could easily check in on them. My mum had more to do having to look after the dog than the kids!
The time has flown by. I’ve been here for every moment of it, and yet I still feel like I’ve missed something, somewhere.
Parenting is hard work. Wonderful, but hard. It’s easy to get lost in the day to day of it without taking the time to step back and see those little people growing up.
With Boo about to choose her GCSE subjects and Little Man in his final year at primary school, they do seem so much older all of a sudden.
A milestone moment was completing the application form for my boy’s secondary school a couple of weeks ago. Little Man is not so little any more.
He wants to go to our nearest comprehensive school, a school he’ll go to with his best mate, and one they can easily walk to together.
We’ll find out in March if he gets in, but given that he would have done in every other year, I think they can safely look forward to embarking on that new adventure together.
I can still vividly remember his nursery days (he wasn’t a fan), his Reception days (only slightly more amenable) and then I look at him now in year 6, so comfortable, confident and bright.
It’s Little Man getting older and completing that form that’s got me like this, but that’s not to say that I don’t see it with my girl.
Boo has just quietly moved into well established teenage territory.
We spend time together listening to music, watching films and bingeing TV shows, browsing for books and chatting about everything and nothing.
She’ll disappear up to her room to watch Netflix snuggled up in her bed (Outer Banks at the moment), stay up reading later than we do each night, make weekend plans with her friends, and she takes all things ‘school’ completely in her stride.
They have their own friends, their own interests, their own priorities and their own worlds. But I love that they still get on well together, Boo always looking out for her little brother (even when he irritates her), Little Man always looking up to (and often mocking) his big sister.
They’ve had a difficult few months with my diagnosis, it’s made them grow up even more, I think. Facing realities and possibilities that wouldn’t have occurred to them before, yet they’re OK, they’re coping well and continuing to make me proud at school and home.
I adore these people we made, it’s a privilege I don’t take for granted to get to see them growing up and becoming who they are meant to be.
Little Man and Boo at 11 and 14. My reasons to smile every day.
It is surprising how quickly the kids can grow up and become more independent. You blink and you miss it happening, I know I have. My eldest is in full time work and my youngest is in her first year of college, it doesn’t seem that long since they were both in primary school.
You must be so proud of your two, they sound really good kids. x
It is, I can’t believe your two are that age either, time flies! Thank you x