For this Mother’s Day edition of Motherhood Diaries, I’m reaching into the vault. I wrote this years ago, in the thick of it – nursery graduations, secondary school transitions, grey hairs and all the feelings. Reading it back, I smiled. Some things don’t change. Happy Mother’s Day, mamas.

This morning, I looked in the mirror and saw grey hairs.

And strangely enough…
they made me smile.

Because the baby of the house was graduating from nursery school that day.

How did it all start?

The alarm went off. I woke up and still had a goofy smile on my face. I stretched, moved into the bathroom and looked at myself in the mirror. Are those grey hairs I see? More of the goofy smile. Yeah, well grey hairs are normal as you grow older and your kids move on. Why the smiles? I was excited because the baby of the house, my last child was leaving nursery school on this day. I suddenly felt all grown up – never mind about him, the graduand! This was all about me! 😊

I moved around the whole day in a blur of smiles and images of graduation from secondary school and grandchildren et al! Grandchildren?! Babe, get a hold of yourself! We are just going into Primary school. Well, I don’t know how many of you have passed through that phase and went through the gamut of emotions that I’m describing but it is one of utmost satisfaction.

I am not sure that any promotion I received since the beginning of my work life comes close to that joy of knowing I have been in this child’s life from the very beginning to this new phase in their life. It’s awesome. It comes with its challenges though, helping them settle in…. but if you’ve got more than one, by the time the last one is going in there are sibs to guide him/her through the rites of passage.

Now I am passing through yet another phase: my first daughter is leaving primary school for secondary school. Here I am feeling all grown-up again. Going around looking for information on schools that fit my profile of a good school…while carefully balancing the dictates of my budget, telling anyone who cares to listen that we are preparing for entrance exams (it sounds so grown-up, yes?!) and preparing her for what is to come. Panicking over boarding and day? Whether I’ve taught her enough to thrust her into the big bad world, whether her study habits are developed enough for what is to come etc. 

I’ve come to realize that I’m the one who needs to be prepared. In the midst of all my panic, my daughter looks at me like ‘what’s that all about?’. We’ve come to the point too when she sometimes looks at me and says, ‘MOTHER’ as opposed to mum (that’s my signal that I’m making a complete fool of myself and embarrassing her to boot!) and she says she wants to go to boarding school so she can hopefully, avoid all the house chores I insist they do. I wonder whether her wanting to escape me for that is a good thing (hey, I hope I’m not pushing her out to go try some bad stuff) or whether it’s a bad thing. But hey, that part of the problem today, isn’t it? The kids have too many people doing too many things for them and as I write these last lines, my mind is made up. She will be a day student, and she will do house chores. QED.

PS: She eventually made it to boarding school, became Head Girl… and yes, she still did her chores whenever she came home. 🙂

Happy Mother’s Day to every mum navigating these beautiful, chaotic milestones.