Having a baby was a long old slog for me and my soon to be ex husband, the getting pregnant bit was easy, it was keeping the babies alive that was hard.  Anyway, that’s for another time. So now here I am, the mother of a sprightly four year old little girl. I named her Lucia and I call her Lulu but now she keeps telling me her name is Lucia, nice huh?

I went back to work when she was ten months old and she went off to full time nursery, I didn’t feel guilty (but I did feel guilty about not feeling guilty). She loved it, in fact she cried every time I picked her up. Then she went through a phase of crying when I dropped her off, that was in the months after my husband left, I really hated him, not for hurting me but for hurting her. For the first time ever I sat in my car in the nursery car park and sobbed. She was insecure and clinging for a long time, she hadn’t really been a very cuddly child until then, but I enjoyed the cuddles, so silver linings and all. Thank fully she is now back to her old self and runs through the nursery doors without even a goodbye kiss

In a few months she will be off to ‘big school’, OMG. What if they ruin her? what if she hates it? Will I be held to ransom by the evil holiday companies charging the earth for breaks during school holidays?

I’m a little sad that I will no longer be able to take a day off work and keep her home with me just so we can have fun on a week day, ‘the man’ will make her go to school all week and our fun will be reserved for the weekends. I also feel a bit sad that I wont be dropping her off or collecting her, commuting to London, full time job etc. I always loved seeing my mum waiting at the school gates at the end of the day and walking to school with her is a good memory for me. I try and hold onto those  memories on the days my mum is driving me mental with all her unwanted parenting ‘advice’. Its hard.

But the first hurdle is getting Lulu into the local primary school. My mouth dropped open when I viewed the school in our catchment and was told that the intake for Lulu’s year was eight places. Eight places? what? So fingers crossed she gets in and then I can concentrate on worrying about all the above. I want her to be independent and confident and happy but it feels a little bit like she is slipping a little bit further away from me, like the first time she crawled, when she literally was slipping out of my arms and across the living room floor. I know its the next stage in her growing up and I really want that to happen but since I won’t be having anymore children it feels very final.

Ps I found out on Thursday that she got into the local primary school. Hooray.