Keys and other thoughts

Today, my younger daughter turns twenty-one!

I’ve made lots of things in my life, but the idea that I’ve made two whole grown-up women is absolutely extraordinary. I’m not quite sure how it happened, or how the time went so fast.

I have a cumulative parenting record spanning forty-four years! That’s staggering!

A woman goes through all sorts of things when she has a child. I know that I did... everything from chronic, and I do mean CHRONIC morning sickness right through both of my pregnancies (Kate Middleton had nothing on me), to my pubic bone separating, to a thirty-seven hour labour...

A woman goes through all sorts of things when she has a child, but nothing can prepare her for actually meeting the person she brings into the world. Nothing can prepare her for the overwhelming feelings that come with that person, feelings that never fade.

I’ve never  known another person like the dort. She’s the funniest, cleverest, most creative young woman I know with the biggest heart and the most captivating nature. She turns every head and when she’s on stage she’s totally mesmerising.

Today, the dort gets the key of the door. It’s a strange milestone, a throwback to the days when twenty-one was the voting age, and I’m not sure why we hang onto it as a special birthday, but it does feel special.

Children aren’t grown-ups at eighteen. The dort was still in school when she was eighteen. She thought she was an adult, but I knew that she wasn’t.

She is now. 

She’s her own woman, and she’s a wonder to me.

I might have raised her, and I know that I had some influence over her... I might even claim that the dort takes after me, and she does in some ways, but, in the end, the dort is ploughing her own furrow, now, and I couldn’t be more proud of who she is.

Time moves too fast, but there are still rare moments when I catch a glimpse of the little girl I raised just as I used to see flashes of the woman that the dort would grow into while she was still a little girl.

I came to motherhood young, and now I seem to be surrounded by people with small children. If you’re one of them, I urge you to enjoy them, to savour every moment that you can, because it is all over far too quickly. Very soon your children will be adults too.

There is an upside, of course, because the day will come when you get to really see what you made and spend time with the results of your labours of love, and there’s an awful lot to be said for that too.

Happy 21st Birthday Lily. Loves! XXX

Lots of lovely Lilys