For the last couple of weeks, Teenage Daughters 1 and 2 have been making their own way to school and this morning, as I took out the bin, I watched them walking off down the street together. As their checkered little figures got smaller and smaller, I remembered a photo I have of them both when they were in years 1 and 2 at school - their arms wrapped around each other, kissing each other on the lips - smaller, chubbier versions of who they are now and it dawned on me that my babies are growing up! Somewhere in amongst the blur of mortgage repayments, jobs, babies, sports days, illnesses and school activities, my little girls have turned into adolescents and I thanked the universe for allowing me to create happy, healthy, well-adjusted little people.
As I lovingly picked up their dirty laundry, their wet towels off the bed and washed their cereal encrusted breakfast dishes with a tear in my eye, I realised again what the true meaning of life is - it's not stressing about lectures, exams, assignments or how much I have to read - these are merely gap-fillers for the truely important things - my children and the adults I am preparing them to be. As the gap widens at an ever increasing rate and I know the next couple of years will become another blur of graduations, weddings, births and deaths, the image of my babies walking to the end of the street, becoming smaller and smaller, will become another image etched in my memory.
Now, I'm not stressing but I must get back to my reading!
Watching my daughters walk off to school together always provokes a 'where did the time go' feeling in me too. Mine are off to secondary (high) school in Sept and I know that first walk in will be a real milestone for all of us. When mine walk in together I always feel faintly suprised that they are twins. It sounds weird but they are such individuals it's not until I see them in the same clothes-school uniform- with the same ponytails swinging and the same walk that it hits me in the face 'they are identical!' Teen girl goes into Yr10 in Sept, the real start of GCSE's I see stressful times ahead with those. My reading is slack atm, planning for our holiday in spain is taking priority - enjoy yours :) I should take some with me but the useful excuse of baggage allowence is preventing me ;) so I am taking one novel 'Middlemarch' and buying a trashy alternative at the airport.
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