This morning I decided to walk with my husband up to the college he is currently attending. The tiny lady is a bit snuffly and under the weather so she was wrapped up tight in her buggy, soother stuffed firmly in her mouth. My husband is, as you probably could guess, a mature student. So we were surrounded by the fine young things of today’s society all chattering eagerly away or else glued to their i-phones.
I felt ancient. I was dressed in my usual week day uniform of jeans and converse. I hadn’t bothered with make-up. Due to my laughably bad levels of fitness I knew even this moderately paced walk would make me break a sweat and I couldn’t face panda eyes when I got home. All around me were beautiful girls all made up with hair piled up on their heads and skinny jeans artfully ripped at the knee (note: I don’t get this look at all, why spend money on ripped clothing? Plus your knees would surely be freezing!). Even the girls who were ‘dressed down’ could have passed for supermodels. And they all walked past me without even a glance. I wasn’t even on their radar. Scruffy mum getting in my way with her nuisance buggy was the best I could probably have hoped for.
And the thing is I remember being one of those girls, I remember it so clearly, like it was just a few days ago. Why do we still stay sixteen in our heads while our bodies let us down by becoming saggy and droopy? It’s a funny old world, we look out from the same pair of eyes and watch the world go by almost like our own personal movie. And suddenly, one day, we hear a song on the radio and immediately switch over to the news or we realise the shops are filled with clothes we would never wear or we discover our daughter is about to turn two when she was only a tiddly thing five minutes ago.
Time moves way too fast, particularly when you are a parent. So I’ve decided that before my girl morphs into one of these beautiful beings over night that I am going to try to mentally slow things down. I’m always in a hurry to get from one chore to the next or to get herself down for a proper nap so I can write but today I am going to appreciate the now with my tiny lady.
(Mis) Adventures in Toddlerdom 