Days gone by

Yesterday while my daughter was at Kindy I went for a lovely long walk on Tahuna Beach. Afterwards I went to a cafe and read one of the gossipy mags provided at the cafe while sipping herbal tea and savouring a chocolate brownie. It was great. It was almost a spring-like day and I got my dose of vitamin D.

Towards the end of my time at the cafe three women parked up next to me with their babies in their buggies. Clearly they'd all been for a long walk and were rewarding themselves with a visit to a cafe. As soon as they sat down, the baby talk started - where their off-spring were at with speech, crawling/standing up etc. I had a pang of I could have done my time with all that. At the same time I felt proud that I have been a stay at home Mum (SAHM) for almost three and a half years.

Everyone always says the time goes fast when your kids - or in my case - kid is growing up. It does and it doesn't. When you are dealing with sleepless nights, housebound days, and challenging times as a parent - sometimes one particular stage can feel as though you are stuck in a bit of a time-warp. Don't get me wrong, I have cherished being a parent right from the word go. But part of being a parent is accepting the good with the bad. The good has definitely outweighed the bad - otherwise I wouldn't have been praying for another shot at motherhood all this time!

I breast-fed my daughter til she was slightly over three. It was a very natural discontinuation of breast-feeding - basically once her day-naps stopped; the feeds did. So I didn't go through the grief some Mums do around breastfeeding ending. The last year or so the day naps were pretty much the only feeds she had and I knew they were coming to an end so I relished cuddling up with my daughter in bed as she had a wee suckle then drifted off to sleep. I would have a nap with her as I knew one day these naps would be no more.

I guess I'm trying to say I have no regrets as a SAHM. We've lived primarily off one income all this time. That too has been a challenge at times but we've coped. It's meant we've had to put our dream of house ownership on hold for a few years but it has been worth it. We don't have family that live permanently in the same town that can care for our daughter so it has been solely up to my husband and I to look after her these past few years.

I think we've done bloody well. It has meant a lot of tag-teaming and now as my daughter enters her third week in (afternoon) Kindy, the rewards of parenting her the way we have are showing themselves. Our daughter has always been a wee bit clingy/a Mummy's girl so there have only been a couple of other adults we've been able to leave her with when my husband and I have wanted to go on the odd date or I've needed to go to an appointment. So it is very rewarding to see how settled and confident she is in Kindy now.

I'm not advocating that any kind of parenting is right or wrong here - we all have our different parenting styles and beliefs. I'm just saying that our parenting styles and beliefs seem to have matched our daughter.

I feel like I have entered/am entering a new life stage on so many levels. It is a case of days gone by as a Mum of a baby, then toddler now my daughter is in Kindy and well and truly a preschooler. At the same time I am facing the double whammy of secondary infertility and premature menopause. No wonder I am overwhelmed some days.

But today I feel okay - good even. That lovely long walk on the beach in the sunshine helped yesterday, as did an early night as well as a chat with my own Mum about menopause. It has meant a lot to me to be able to talk to her about the symptoms and the psychological/emotional changes that come with menopause as she's been through it all of course. I'm not mad - just going through a transitional period. Or as some call it " the change of life".