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.