February 7, 2005

• (Someone bought me Premium. Whoever you are, wherever you are - thank you. It's always MY luxuries that seem to get sacrificed when we are doing it tough.

  
  

  And Phoebe, I miss writing here too. Thank you for  your email.)

  
  

  Alone.

  
  

  So Miss Mouse started Kindergarten last week, uniform pressed, shoes shined, hair in a 'big girl' scrunchy. She seemed to go from being my baby to being someone else in a nanosecond. A stranger. She primped and preened and adjusted her hat and rolled down her socks so she 'didn't look dorky' and chattered happily about 'big school' until I thought my heart would snap in two. She held my hand only until the school gate, then cheerfully dumped her book bag at my feet, yanked off her hat and ran to join her friends in a game of chase. I was left standing there, feeling wholly redundant. Thank god for Cherub, who came over to give me a cuddle and then waddled off to tag along with her big sister.

  
  

  I just stood there. Frozen with embarassment and fear and longing.

  
  

  I don't know the mummies from school - because this is my first time. I don't really understand the educational system here, having never experienced it first hand, and I do not belong to the various mummy cliques that seem to whirl and swarm around the community like some sort of underground sorority. I am just me, big and gawky still at 40+, older than most mothers waving their kids goodbye for the first time, and younger than mothers who are ushering their last child through the gates of the educational system. And let's face it - any time I wander into a school yard, I am instantly transported back to my painfully shy childhood.

  
  

  Mousey doesn't have those sort of issues though. She's happy and confident in her place in the world. She's only  moved once in her short life, and has lived here long enough that there are loads of familiar faces in her kindy class. She's found her gang, and will most likely stick with them until high school. She's everything I wanted to be as a kid. So I must have done a half decent job in the first 4.375 years of her life. That's a validation.

  
  

  She's taken to school like a duck to water. Apart from some tears at the beginning of the day, when I leave. She gets a bit clingy then, as if she knows that the days we spent hassling each other affectionately, the times we cuddled up and told each other ridiculous stories, the nights we drank cocoa at 3am and told each other we loved each other 'to the sky'... are fast fading into the fuzzy memories of early childhood. Soon she won't even remember them. Soon she won't need me to kiss booboos or fix her hair, or put Barbie's head back on or listen to her version of the latest pop song. Her friends will do all that for her. Not her mum.

  
  

  Cherub is at preschool for the first time ever today. The first time she has ever been without me. Like her sister, she took it all in stride. Proudly stowed her Cat in the Hat backpack and her Disney Princess lunchbox, put Fimble in her locker for sleeptime (not playtime, oh no never!) and settled down to pour sand all over herself in the sandbox. She's a quiet kid, a thinker. Her big sister races everywhere at 100 miles an hour, while Cherub watches and waits for the crash. She's twice as cuddly which worries me a bit - since you only know something is wrong when she wanders up for a hug. Anyway, I left her there, she who couldn't be distracted from her sandcastle long enough to give me a kiss good bye, and wandered off into the sunset. I hope she gets enough hugs today.

  
  

  And now, here I am. 5 whole hours of 'me time'. The 'me time' that I have been moaning and bitching about for what seems like forever - but has only been five years. I don't remember the last time I had more than an hour to myself. I keep picking things up and putting them down. I can't seem to settle into one of the many excellent novels I am reading. The Sims are boring me to the extent I've put them all into concrete houses with no windows and doors, and am watching them go crazy.

  
  

  I could clean the house, it sure needs it. But there's something about the mess left by two little girls that I want to keep today. Today I am going to step over Polly Pocket dolls (why do none of them have pants on?), trip over the Little People (why are there so many piled into one school bus? Must ask Cherub when she gets home), and pick up and touch all the detritus of two little lives.

  
  

  They are growing up. Their lives are moving away and apart and forward and I can't bear to clean up what they've left behind just yet.

  • 7:29 pm
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