It doesn’t feel like too far back I was typing up the title ‘Moo Turns Two‘, but that’s how it goes with this child rearing thing. Every day is fleeting, and yet your life without them seems an eternity ago. I can barely remember who I was before Moo. Becoming a parent changes everyone, but choosing motherhood has altered me in so many ways, and so deeply.
Life has been a blur this last year, we’ve been busy. A family holiday, the first festive season that Moo could really get stuck in to, a trip to the hospital with a UTI, my pumping journey came to an end.
Today was wonderful: cake, sunshine, cards, gifts, Mr Men balloons and family. Moo has loved it, all the sweet treats she could manage and blowing out her candle, without any help this year. I’m tired, so tired. There were times I was anxious and fucked off. The beast doesn’t let you forget it’s there. But I’m still here, I did it. I wonder if Moo will remember today and look on it fondly. Or will the worst times of her childhood be the lasting impression?
How do I feel, as my toddler becomes a ‘preschooler’? Sad. Sad and angry that yet another year of her life has passed with my mental illness hanging over us like a dark cloud. Three years of my daughters life have been sucked into a vacuum of depression, the wonderful moments entirely overshadowed by the awful ones.
I’m not sure what the next year will bring. I know that Moos preschool adventure will begin, she’ll get taller, her hair longer. Our relationship may evolve as I begin some intensive therapy. I hope this year will bring about the start of me becoming the parent I so desperately want to be, to the daughter that I love beyond compare.
