Bye Bye Baby

So the boy wonder is due to start school in a couple of months and with it will be the end of a chapter for our family.  No more babies.

Neither of the children are actually babies (and haven't been for some considerable years), chubby limbs with lines instead of ankles and wrists became sturdy arms and legs many moons ago, their songs are no longer the lullabies that I sang, their bodies no longer small enough to be contained in my arms but there is something about your youngest starting school that seems a much more decisive transfer from the baby years than any other landmark.

But it's ok.  I don't long to push a pram, change a nappy, get woken up at hourly intervals or wipe sick off my clothes.  I don't want to return to wearing a changing bag on my back like a tortoise's shell, or a maternity bra on my front like a.....well a maternity bra, and I definitely don't want to revisit the singularly uncomfortable contortionist's act that is childbirth.  I am ready for this.

The girl is loving school, the boy can't wait to go and we're all looking forward to having them both in the same place at the same time.  We are roaming restlessly, counting down days, collecting uniform and making great plans for the nursery fees we will save.  He will come home with a book bag and tell us tales of what books he is going to learn to read and we will be proud.

And because of this, when he walks in with his big sister on his first day, I will try really, really hard not to cry.


Soundtrack: Bye Bye Baby by the Bay City Rollers