Slipping through my fingers...

Can I go to the park before my tennis lesson today? No 1 greeted me with this request as soon as I came downstairs yesterday.

Normally she comes to tennis straight from cross country, but wasn't on yesterday, the sun has shone all week long, I took them to the park after school the other day, so I've put the idea in her head.

I said no of course, because I didn't want her hanging about on her own, besides her time keeping is lousy, so she'd never make it back to tennis on time.

This didn't go down at all well, as you can imagine, because No 1 is ten going on eighteen, and keen to assert her independence. She is soooo desperate to wash her hands of her embarrassing parents, that when we're out now she tends to walk twenty paces ahead like a muslim husband. It's a wonder she doesn't have me in a burkha...

I am not totally anti the idea of her being more independent, in fact I'm pleased that I'm not going to have to shove her out of the nest when the time comes for her to spread her wings (the rate she's going, she'll have flown off long before I'm ready - mind you will I ever be ready?), but...

She's only ten, and already it feels like I'm losing her.

As I've mentioned before ad nauseam, I often use music to inspire emotion in my writing, and one of the songs for the current wip is Slipping Through My Fingers by Abba. I chose it for my hero's daughter, but oh, how it speaks to me about my own.

In another seven years, no 1 will be thinking about uni (that is if she's still allowed to go, considering her parents have been, we've probably skewed her chances), and leaving me for good. In another nine, it will be no 2's turn...

Shit. I've got to go through this process four times.

Watching them grow.

Then watching them go...

I know I moan alot about the insanity of my life, but as Nic wisely pointed out on my post about the show, when I DON'T have mad weekends to keep me going I shall probably miss them like crazy.

And every time I hear that Abba song it makes me cry.

Better try to remember that next time I'm shouting in the morning...