I'm not ready
I'm in denial
It can't be that time already?
Yet here it is
School is starting in a mere few weeks away and wow, I didn't realise how fast it was approaching.
It seemed forever away. Haven't we just only bought her back from the hospital?
I'd only just accepted that we had started nursery and I was ok with this because it gave me a balance; time without my daughter, but also that quality time for baking (we've never baked) or making daisy chains whilst dancing through the wild flowers in a field on a sunny day (we've not done this either)
However it's always good to have a child friendly back up activity just in case.
Seriously though. it gave me the balance of having her home for a few days for us to do things together plus giving me some free time.
That's going to change soon though and seeing as she's my only child it's a BIG chapter ending and a new one starting in our house.
So my five year plan has come to an end - now what?
Anyway, we live next to a school and when I first had my daughter five years ago I remember looking at these mums dropping their children off and then seeing them skip off down the road with this sense of freedom and new lease of life.
I remember feeling jealous and thinking 2017 is a gazillion years away, and here I am holding my tiny baby who will never be that age. I will forever be in this baby bubble and will never have "me time" again.
Yet, like everything, the time passes and the baby is turning five this year!!!
I know I'm not where I thought I would be at this point in my life. I did think there would be another child here to take up my time and for me to fill my time with, but that's not the case.
So come September it's just me for six hours a day, five days a week.
Now I have many people saying to me, "Take some time for yourself and just relax".
I have 30 hours a week to relax whilst my daughter is at school. Yes, don't get me wrong I'm looking forward to the quiet time, without questions being asked to me every few minutes and going to the toilet in peace without a running commentary of what I'm doing.
But, there is only so much cleaning, sorting, shopping, socialising and decorating that I can handle.
Of course I will miss her. The control freak in me, the 'need-to-know neurotic mother who wants to be told everything about my child' will have to accept that her child belongs to the school system now and that I'm not a part of that.
For 30 hours a week she'll be independent of me and doing her own thing and I know that is ok.
So what do I do?
Well I will tell you what I'm going to do.
I'm going to send her off to school and cry like a wailing banshee (apologies to the school mums I will see on the playground) then I will regain some self-control over my emotions and it will be ok.
And I'll be ok.
And then we'll see where we go from there.