Slipping through my fingers

13 sleeps and child 1 flies off to India for the first stop on her first grown up adventure. We are filling our days with last minute visits to family to say goodbye, meals, coffee dates and shopping trips to spend as much time as possible with her before she heads off. At night when all is quiet and I am left alone with my thoughts  I am tangled up in a mix of emotions, pride in her achievements, excitement (maybe a touch of envy) for everything she is going to do and see, worry as she will be so far away and there are no guarantees of her safety and sorrow as this is the beginning of her leaving home.

I have and am encouraging all my children to be independent, to have a desire to see this wonderful world we inhabit, to look for adventure in their futures and would probably be a little disappointed if they didn't fly the nest, visiting exciting new places on their journeys. But, I have to say that I have been surprised by the mix and the depth of emotions child 1's travel plans have caused.
As for her siblings, Child 2, I think and hope will come into his own, he has for a few years now lived in child 1's shadow and will now have an opportunity to take his place as the oldest for a few months. Child 3 will miss her older sister I am sure but will, I hope take the change in her stride, no 4 however I fear, will view this change as another loss. In the hope of counter-acting this we are taking him with us to drop no1 to the airport so that he realises she has left on a trip, rather than gone off in the car and never returned, she is leaving her favourite childhood toy "Dolly" for him to look after until she returns and I have bought a scrap book for us to do, whilst she is away. We will print off two photos from her and her friends holiday Instagram and add them to the scrap book with some decorations and captions every week.

13 more sleeps and I am holding onto every moment of joy I can.

Melancholy Mother

Mother's Day brings such a mix of emotions these days, I want my mum to know she is loved and appreciated. She is my go to support, my rock, the person who gently reminds me to laugh at the antics of my children. As a mum I would love a proper day off, no washing, no cooking, no wading into arguments, just time for me to sit and be quiet to do what I want to do, not what I should do. But now four years into adoption there is another mother who intrudes my thoughts on Mother's Day. As yet it seem so to be only me who feels this interloper, child 4 is too little yet, but as he grows I wonder how he will manage these days. Will he be confused, angry or scared or will he just ignore the fact that his biological mother is out there somewhere.
How will I cope sharing the day with her, I am the one who reads with him, deals with the tears, the rages, the joy of achievements. Then I feel guilty, how does this young woman feel every year on Mother's Day, knowing her child is out there, being cared for by someone else, someone who reads to him, wipes his tears, calms his temper and shares the joys of all his achievement.

I know that I could be hard line about child 4's mum, as adoption is due to children having to be removed from their birth family because that is the best thing for them. The birth families are not, for whatever reasons, able to provide even the basic care for their children and mix in abuse and neglect there is absolutely nothing romantic in these adoption stories, they are not Annie, Anne of Green Gables or Harry Potter. But, when we met her, I saw a scared, vulnerable young woman unable to change her life for the sake of her young son. Her story is as much a tragedy as her son's, if not more so as she has lost everything, I have absolutely no idea how she gets through days like today, how would I cope. So I sit here tonight feeling melancholy.