Little Daisy, you drive me crazy…..
Our morning started in the usual manner.
I got up early with my husband to share a cup of coffee and an uninterrupted conversation. After he left for work, I took a moment to enjoy the silence of the day, made the kids’ packed lunch and unloaded the dishwasher.
I could hear the little footsteps coming downstairs. The children are awake. Suddenly things got livelier, louder and faster. Fixing breakfast, finding book bags and fastening shoelaces becomes an autonomous sequence of events and somehow we are always in a hurry, seemingly unorganised.
After the school run I am in the waiting room at the doctor’s surgery. There are quite a number of expectant mothers popping in to see the midwife. I noticed how they all glow - some waddling, other’s barely showing and few cradling their growing bumps. Some are young, others more mature. A handful with a toddler in tow and for many, pregnancy is a new experience. All mothers growing their babies with pride.
I reminisced about being pregnant. I haven’t thought about it for such a long time. My children are school age and the era of babies only a distant memory. The battles of latching, weaning, linking sleep cycles, reaching milestones and forming attachment bonds seem long forgotten. Toddlers and big boys have different battles.
It is this thought that made me realise how important it is to treasure little moments of bliss at each stage of growing up; the everyday habits, the cute mannerisms, the clumsy accidents, those terrible battles that you wish they would grow out of (soon), and the nostalgic memories of them growing up.
Days seem long, and nights short, they seem to roll into passing months where your time is dictated by feeding schedules and nap routines. It is easy to miss the little moments that catch you off guard. It is easy to forget them when you are tired. But over time, I realised that these are the precious memories that stay with you. It’s their fleeting childhood I will one day ache and yearn for, and desperately miss. My eldest is bit too tall now to curl up on my lap for a cuddle. He still does, but it is getting more difficult and awkward to get comfortable with his scrawny legs. I suppose that in itself will become another memory to treasure when he is a teenager trying to find his own voice in the world.
Don’t let me forget their littleness. It is sometimes their littleness that makes me wish they would be more independent, give me more room to move and time to myself. It made me realise how lucky I am to be a mother and how my life is enriched by their being. So while I have it now, remind me to enjoy it a little bit longer, love them little bit deeper and hold them that little bit tighter, because, like all things in life, this too shall pass.
Hopefully the next time I feel overwhelmed by motherhood, I will remember that these little daisies of mine, who blossom and grow, provide me with comfort, inspiration, and courage to keep trying to be the best version of a mother that I could be for them. It is the little things that make up the big things.
With kindness