I am feeling sentimental.
There are a number of reasons for this.
1. It is a cool, grey, rainy day. In fact May so far has mostly been disappointing weather wise, our punishment I guess for the glorious week we had early in the year!
2. On Saturday, my 1st 'baby' turned 21.....yes 21!! How the heck did that happen! (though ask her and she will deny it, saying she is never getting any older!)
3. Yesterday my baby (as in the youngest of the fold) turned 16. And I have made it a tradition to pull together photos of each of them from their first 16 years of life to sprinkle liberally around the sitting room for the enjoyment of all who visit the house over the coming weeks! So I have spent the last couple of days going through the photo albums, scanning in pictures and reminiscing.
4. The dawning realisation that 'family' holidays have really come to an end for us. Technically this has been a slow process that began in 2007 when Lorna went on holiday with friends and the rest of us went to Sicily. And gradually, though we all went to Ireland together in 2009, the holidays when all five of us were away together have dwindled. This year Josh is off on holiday with Kate, Lorna and Joe probably won't go away and when I asked Heather about where she would like to go, she said 'do I HAVE to go on holiday?', nice!
It's really quite odd, I will be thinking about nothing in particular when suddenly I think a random thought that reminds me of the changing times. I know I will go on many more holidays, and who knows one day hubby and I will manage that honeymoon in the Maldives, or the road trip through New England in the fall. And maybe one day there will be grandchildren and we will be allowed to indulge them with seaside trips in return for babysitting. But for now all that looks new, and different.
This parenting lark....indeed this life lark, can be a funny old thing. There are lots of books, gurus, forums and advice out there for new parents and parents of toddlers, but much less seems to be written about parenting teenagers and beyond. Certainly my network of friends who have been through this stage or who are going through it now has dwindled to almost nothing and that can feel really quite lonely. I am often left feeling vulnerable and scared trying to picture even the very near future. I know we are supposed to live in the present to be truly at peace, and I try...but at least when they were small I had points of reference from my nursery nursing training and experiences babysitting, nannying and having a baby brother.
Parenting young adults is new and there don't seem to be many books or other advice, and to be honest I would probably reject them any way! But it might be comforting to have a mother and young adult group (along the lines of mother and toddler group!) to go and chat and compare notes once each week!
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