Happy Birthday, Maïa!

More Mum musings...

I'm not quite in the space right now to share Maïa's birth story (and it seems so far away for me), but I will share a few thoughts on motherhood.

Three years ago today, when Maïa was born, I couldn't have imagined what it was going to be like, being a mum. I hadn't considered what kind of things I would have to do for my children, and if I had, I wouldn't have known that they would seem so totally normal to me. Illustration: today, Maïa started to wriggle around, then she squealed, "Mummy! it's itchy!!" and she pointed to her bottom. She couldn't quite get the right angle, or something, so she asked me to scratch. And I did. I wouldn't do that for anyone else. I love Derek to bits, but I wouldn't scratch his bum if he asked. But I never gave it a second thought. And when I did it, I just laughed at the ridiculousness of scratching someone else's bum!!

Another thing that I hadn't banked on is how much a part of me my girls would be. From what I understand, it's not quite the same between mothers and sons, but with mothers and daughters, there's this strange connection... it's a push-pull sort of thing. And if I had known about it before, I would have thought myself above it or immune to it or something. But here it is... I am very tough on Maïa about most things. I have very high expectations of her (and I imagine it will be the same with Solanne, once she's of a certain age where she understands better). I want her to be able to do so much, to behave well, to be smart, to be cool, to be sporty, to be pretty, to be funny... And I've been thinking about it for a while, and I've realised that I'm trying to live myself through her. I don't want her to be me. I actually want her to be better than me. So when she's shy, I get upset. When she walks around with her head in the clouds and ends up tripping over stuff, I get frustrated. When she can't throw a ball as well as other children her age, I get annoyed. But these are all things I've been known to do (or used to do).

So I'm learning (or trying to learn) to let Maïa be Maïa. She's not mini-me. She's not a new incarnation of me, to be perfected. She's a perfect little version of herself. She's shy (sometimes), but she's kind (almost always). She has her head in the clouds, but she has an incredible imagination. She can't throw a ball very well, but she has a fantastic time trying.

And here's the best part of all this: I'm learning as much about being a better person as Maïa is learning about life. Thanks, Maïa, for the beautiful gift of you.