Motherhood: a continual process of letting go, one small moment at a time.

I wasn’t ready for this.


We decided a little while ago we’d (two mums and Pix) swap bedrooms with the caramel kids (my big three). For practical reasons. So yesterday, mid exam study, the inspiration struck and we swapped everything. A king bed, a bunk, 2 single beds, book shelves, chests of drawers and two big cupboards full of stuff. Not to mention the hoards of sh*t under the kids’ beds and the endless piles of lego.


It was a practical decision, noise, lights, room size, etc. It was also feeling necessary for Phoenix to have a bed to fall asleep in when I was doing bedtime with them the four of them. It was getting difficult to sit on Summer’s bed with Pix on my lap and read. Summer was feeling cramped and Phoenix less comfortable sleeping in my lap as a nearly 4 year old. 


For nearly 4 years, I’ve sat in my kids’ room with Phoenix on my lap, first breastfeeding, then cuddling, now lying all over me, little limbs and toys and jewellery and blankets going everywhere. 


As we were doing the swapping and changing we half consciously, half unconsciously didn’t put a bed in the Mums’ new room for Phoenix. Just our king bed.


And then bedtime came around. Summer and Phoenix decided to push their beds next to each other and I lay in the middle, on the crack of course. I delighted in lying between my two little girls, I don’t remember the last time I lay between them to read to them. Then Phoenix said, ‘Mum, get off my bed! Stop stealing my doona!’ Gee Phoenix, brutal. We finished our books, turned the light off and turned on some music. The same music we listen to every night. The same music I listened to during Summer and Phoenix’s births. My two little, wild, free birthed girls.


Normally, I stay in their room every night until the youngest three are asleep then carry Phoenix in to our room. Phoenix announced, ‘Ok Mum, you can go and get in your bed now’. I asked if she was sure she wanted to sleep in there, I could take you into the big bed once you’re asleep if you want to. She insisted on being left in her bed in the kids’ room. Again, she said I could go. I said no, I’ll wait until you’re asleep but she insisted. So I said, ‘Ok, how about I wait until Ace and Summer are asleep and then I’ll go, you can just stay awake if you want to’. Of course she was asleep 30 seconds later.


And then I realised that was it, she was sleeping in her own bed in the kids’ room for the first time in her little life. And I realised I wasn’t ready for that. Neither was Courtenay, it turned out.


We both cried and cried as we went to bed in our room, for the first time without a child. For the first time for us individually without our children for more than a decade.


The contradictions of motherhood are exhausting. I have spent years looking forward to sleeping in a bed without a child kicking, coughing, rolling around and hitting me in the face, imagining this hypothetical freedom, and now the time has come and I don’t want it. I’m not ready for this next big step in the growing up of my babies. 


Needless to say, I hardly slept, ears sharp, listening out for the faintest sound of Phoenix needing me. I took Phoenix to the toilet some time in the night and then lay back down between my girls, on the crack, with half a doona, awake for hours but not wanting to leave them, then finally went back to my bed at 5am, roosters crowing, announcing that it was actually time to get up, not go back to bed.


Courtenay and I, still upset this morning at this Great Mistake we’d made having Pix sleep away from us, decided we’d get the spare bed from the container and put it in our room for Phoenix tonight. We couldn’t cope. This morning, however, Phoenix was so pleased with herself. She loves her new bed in the kids room and said she doesn’t want a bed in our room.


She’s ready for the change, for the growing up. It’s just the mums that aren’t ready. And will I ever be ready? Will I ever be ready for my children to grow up? I have always felt that to be a mother is to learn to let go. From the moment of conception we are learning to let go and if we are lucky enough to birth our thriving, slippery, howling babies, the lessons keep coming. Every milestone, every new chapter is another letting go.


So tonight, I wonder if I’ll be able to sleep a little more? I wonder if I’ll be able to let go a little more? I wonder if I’ll be able to trust that she’s ok and that this sudden moment of my littlest sleeping 3 metres away instead of right next to me is just a normal part of her growing up?


But who knows, tonight she might just want to sleep squeezed between us anyway and I’ll be so happy to have her little curls tickling my nose, her little feet tucked under my legs and her soft little breath on my neck.


And I’ll hold her a little tighter, knowing that she’s growing up.