To Moo on your 16th birthday

I can’t bear it. Just the thought of you being 16 makes me all weepy.

I look at you and I see a woman. We laugh, we joke, we share. Just like girlfriends. But then you look sad and my heart breaks. You attempt to curl up in my lap and I am transported back to when you were a little girl. Not someone 2 inches taller than me.

Last night, as usual, I wrapped my arms around you from behind. I put my face on your cool back and I could feel your heart beating. I hugged you tighter. Growing up is hard. But I didn’t realise how hard it would be for me. If I hug you from behind I can still pretend you are my little girl. The other way around I am suffocated by the physical evidence of you growing up.

I love our chats. Just sitting in the lounge, while I’m cooking dinner, driving in the car. I love that you tell me all the little things that have happened or what’s going on at school (see the apostrophe in ‘what’s’? You little grammar nazi? 🙂 ) and that you don’t feel like you need to ‘edit’ it for a parental. Just easy conversation. Something I wished I had with my mother. But sometimes I find it hard to fight the mummy instinct. Sometimes the primal lioness protecting her cubs rises up in me and I want to fight the world to protect you from any hurt. But I can’t. Your ‘boo-boo’s’ now cannot be fixed with a kiss and a bandaid.

But I am always here for you. I am always on your side. I breathe for you.

My first born. I was still so very much a little girl when I had you. 19 years old and thought I knew everything. Then you came along. We have grown up together.

I know sometimes you resent the fact that you need to ‘break me in’. You being my first child, you are the one that needs to test the waters and teach me to let go. I am too protective. I recognise that. But I think that also comes from the fact that my teenage years are still so clear, I don’t want you to make the same mistakes I made. But you are a different person to me, more wise, more intelligent, more switched on. When you were born the nurses said ‘This one has been here before’, I thought them delusional.

Now I am not so sure.

You are so loving and caring to your siblings. No matter how much they drive you to distraction you forgive them anything. Boo has turned your life upside down, but you still turn to me and say ‘God, I love that kid’. That makes my heart swell with pride. Not because you love your brother, but because you see past the negative and honestly know that he means no harm. You see the good in him. You are not embarrassed when he screams the place down in a crowded store, you are more concerned about his welfare. I cannot say that I would have been the same at your age. You are much more mature than me.

Moo, your smile ignites my heart. Your happiness is my happiness. Your sorrow is mine, two fold. I tell you every day how much I love you, they are not just words.

You are an amazing wonderful person and I am so proud to say that I am your Mum.

Happy Birthday my beautiful girl.

Love,

Mummy

xx

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side note:  To see the letter to Too for her birthday look under ‘letters’. 

There will be a letter to Boo tomorrow. 

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