Hard Letting Go

From the earliest moments of pregnancy, even before your child is born, you love them and feel protective. During this time you follow all the rules, take the correct vitamins and pray for a healthy baby. That tenderness and love keeps growing and when you eventually get to hold your wee one in your arms that love manifolds itself ten hundred times over.

You watch them grow up, develop, make mistakes, learn – each period another tick of the clock. Having two older children l realise how quickly time can pass - perhaps this is why l notice it all the more with my youngest. I am pleased he is becoming more confident in himself but l also feel a loss for the wee boy he was. This year he is stretching in so many ways- his topics of conversation, his thinking, his humour, sleeping on the top bunk, walking to school, crossing the streets, wanting to explore, cooking, making tea- argh! It is getting hard to stay one step ahead of him these days.

This morning he said, “You can't keep me forever, you have to let me do things mum!”- ouch! He wanted to cross the bigger road by himself and although l know he has to learn, it is a wrench on so many levels. I stood back and he did well – perhaps even a little over cautious.

I want to cherish as many moments as l can with him now- before they're gone too.