Baby steps

Just yesterday it seemed I was breast feeding my little baby every morning in bed with me, changing her heavy night nappy for a fresh one and facing a new day with my sleep deprived eyes. I would gently stroke her baby curls with a super fine hairbrush and she would never be more than a step away from me.

But all that has changed. That little baby girl has slowly but surely grown up. Small achievements have manifest together to shape a grown up girl. From those first independent movements rolling over, sitting up, then her style of commando crawling, Little Miss has been very busy, while we were all looking at screens she has been on a mission to become independent. Be it putting food in her own mouth to putting on her own socks and shoes to coordinating her legs to skip run and even dance...

Manipulating scissors successfully to cut, holding a pencil that can draw something we all recognise...

Very importantly now she can communicate effortlessly her demands desires and needs. Knowing herself and her mind, "I want to wear a pink dress with long selves" she tells me.

Did I turn my back and not notice these changes? No I didn't, I foolishly celebrated every milestone and was reassured by her development. Every one of her tiny achievements over years gradually brings her to independence, and then my job is done. This mothering job rudely interrupts your own life yet fulfils your heart. Slowly you get little pieces of your own life back, but that comes at the expense of letting go and your heart is liable to break.

Little Miss has started Kindergarten. Off she goes, eager to make friends and absorb whatever she can about the world. And I have to set her on her way and encourage her steps away from me.