Eliza

Last month Eliza started 'big school'.

Standing in the playground watching her line up with her peer group, I saw the other Mothers around me.

They all looked slightly worried, anxious and many were tearful.

I wasn't.
I felt excited.

I was a little bit sad that the part of her life where she spent most of her day with me was gone. Monday to Sunday with the brief separations for playgroup sessions four times a week barely making a dent in our day to day togetherness.

Just a little sad............but mostly I felt excited.

Excited for Eliza.

Of course in the four and a half years since Eliza charged at full speed ahead into my world, I have tried to be a deserving Mother to this very enigmatic little girl.

I have taught her to know right from wrong, to be polite and friendly, to have confidence etc. etc. and I've tried to ensure she has a good grasp of the basics for her school education but I know that school will open up a whole new world for her and if she's anything like her older brother and sisters, she will thoroughly enjoy it.
Eliza is very small (some of the clothes she still wears are labelled for twelve to eighteen month old children), with long fine blonde hair and huge blue saucer like eyes (actually more dinner plate than saucer!), framed by ridiculously long dark eyelashes.
Oh yes, she looks like an angel but as we all know........... looks can be deceiving.
Eliza is obsessive, compulsive, bad tempered, stubborn beyond belief, sweet, gentle, funny, enchanting................all in all bloody hard work and absolutely wonderful rolled into one very small pretty package!
Small and delicate in appearance Eliza may be but she will not let this be a reason for anyone to cross her.
Which is great.
Her ambition (in her own words) is 'to grow up to be just the same as Rosie but with long hair'.
I'll admit that I feel a little disappointed that she aspires to be just like her older sister not her Mummy but after careful consideration I realise that given a choice between a very scatterbrained forty-one year old with a wardrobe made up of jeans, t-shirts and scruffy old boots, with slightly more grey hair and belly flab than is desirable and a nearly nineteen year old with a washboard stomach (complete with sparkly belly button piercing), cool tattoos just below the bikini-line (a completely flab-free bikini-line!) with a huge collection of cool clothes, jewellery and makeup etc., etc., I can understand her choice of role model!

Soon Eliza will be learning to read which is one of my favourite periods of the Motherhood experience.
When a child can curl up with a book and get lost in the contents it really is great to witness.
All that 'stuff' going into those still fresh young minds.
Fantastic.
At the moment Eliza is still at the stage where information about her days at school is not particularly forthcoming. I suppose because the first term for reception pupils is still primarily play with a few bits of learning sneaked in here and there so as not to scare them off too soon!?
So the response I get from Eliza to my cheery enquiries about her day during our walk home from school are almost dismissive, as if she has been going for years rather than a few weeks.
Which I suppose suggests she is taking it all in her stride.
Which is good.
My little girl with her slightly too-big school uniform and hair ribbons to match is off..........she has left the starting blocks and is now a schoolgirl with all those years of fun, frustration, pride, worry and wonder ahead of her.
I've always considered independence to be one of the most important things to teach your kids and I'm sure Eliza is more than ready to rise to the challenge.
Good luck littl'un, see ya later.x