Friday 20 July 2012

Growth...and I don't mean my waistband

This morning is our eldest's last day at middle school, come September she will be starting secondary school and yes there will be tears.

It seems like only yesterday that she was a tiny baby that we weren't sure what to do with, didn't want to hold her too tight in case we broke her.  Now she is nearly as tall as me and wearing my clothes, well OK not all my clothes because apparently most of them are embarrassing...

It has made me think about growth.

We all grow, we all change over time and hopefully it is for the better, we learn by our mistakes and we grow from our experiences.

I shudder sometimes to think what I was like as a teenager, oh I wasn't bad...bad - just opinionated.

My eldest is very grown up for her age and incredibly responsible but we still get glimpses of the child...when she still plays with dollies for instance, because she is so grown up we tend to forget that she is only 11 and still a baby really.

I wonder how much society has taken childhood from our children?  The world is so full of computers, TV and accessible media do children really still have a childhood as we had?  Playing with simple toys or running through the woods?

I am not really lamenting the loss of those things because the world changes, as all things do, movement is necessary in all things, the Wheel turns, the World turns - all changes, all growth.

I can only hope that she holds onto her inner child, something I believe that is very important for all of us to do.  Our 6 year old and my 49 year old husband both fall into fits of laughter at bottom jokes...

So this evening I will encourage her to embrace the good memories, to make a photo album with all the photos she has collected and add it to the Memory box she has.    A box we started when she was very small, it holds her hospital tag, first pair of bootees, bits and pieces from nursery and then her primary school - a journey of her life really, it's nearly full now so we will need to start a new one, perhaps starting secondary school is a good time to do that.

Today I will relive happy memories, today I will embrace change and growth, today I will remember my inner child too and this afternoon I will probably pull my hair out as I have a house full of 11 year old girls getting ready for their end of school disco...

Tansy
x



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