Why I'm so weepy! – Mummascribbles

I keep weeping every time I leave Zach at nursery at the moment. I genuinely seem to be struggling with the fact that he is being settled into pre-school and it’s such a silly thing considering that all that is happening really is that he’s moving rooms. I mean, it’s not like he hasn’t done it before. But this time just feels so different.

I wrote just last week about how emotional I feel about him growing up so quickly but it seems to be a constant emotion at the moment.

When I dropped him off at nursery on Tuesday, the general manager was in Zach’s current toddler room and he mentioned to me that they were now starting the official settle into pre-school. I knew this time was coming but hearing it and being told about it felt so very different. And so when I left, I shed a few tears.

As I’d been told that the settle in would sometimes involve going down to pre-school after breakfast (which is what happened on tuesday), and sometimes going straight into pre-school for breakfast, this morning I checked where he’d be and I had to take him straight into what will be his new room. Seeing him in there, sitting round the table with a few older children and immediately being comfortable in his new surroundings was wonderful. He was happy, he was confident and he wasn’t crying for me although he had a brief whimpering moment but that’s because I’d hung around for too long! I stayed outside for a moment spying on him and he looked so big and so grown up.  And then I left and there appeared more tears!

It seems that my little boy is growing up and for the first time I’m really struggling with it. I remember him turning one and feeling emotional.  I remember him turning two and feeling less emotional. I remember him moving up from baby class to teenies, and from teenies to toddlers without feeling like his years were passing me by too fast. And yet here I am feeling incredibly down about what is such a big stage in his life.

Such an important stage in his life.

Because pre-school is a massive step.  It’s not all about play. It’s not all about having lots of fun.  Of course it’s featured heavily within the day but it’s also about learning. It’s about preparing my little boy for his leap to school in two years time.  It’s about teaching him how to learn in a more structured environment,  about teaching him to listen so that he doesn’t get in trouble when he’s in school. It’s about so much more than what the last two years at nursery have been about.

And then as I was walking to the car and driving home to make my journey into work, something else hit me.  Something else that has been brewing away in my little head over the last couple of weeks that may explain why I’m finding this new stage so difficult. I feel like I have missed so much of him. Our first nine months together were an almost constant.  We were together for 98% of the time.

Then I went back to work three days a week but I still had those special days at home with him and I spent more time with him than I did at work.  Then it upped to four days at work but it still didn’t feel as bad because there was one precious day that was just the two of us. And then I moved to full time work and suddenly there was no day for just us. Suddenly,  out of those 84 hours per week that he is awake for, I was seeing him for maybe 36. An hour in the morning and and an hour in the evening.  And then at weekends. And for me, it is just not enough.

Yesterday I spent the whole day with him. It was wonderful. We didn’t even do anything majorly exciting because it was lashing down for the whole afternoon but it didn’t matter because we were together.  When he had his nap, he didn’t want to fall asleep on his bed and instead he fell asleep on me, on the sofa.  And I treasured every one of those sleep snuggles (along with a cup of tea!).

Throughout the day he wanted to cuddle my tummy.  This is his favourite thing at the moment, to pull my top up and snuggle his cheek into my bare skinned tummy. It’s adorable, except when I’m trying to choose new socks for him in Marks and Spencer and he does it!

We spent the afternoon indoors,  playing with the rabbits who we rescued from the rainy garden, we watched TV,  we did a bit of craft, I cooked him his dinner and we waited for daddy to come home. It was just wonderful and reminded me of all the times we used to get to do this stuff – just the two of us.

And I think this is a huge part of why I’m feeling so emotional at the moment.  Over the past two years of working, I have missed out on so much of his life. And suddenly he is turning three, moving up to pre-school and I am never ever going to get that time back with him.

I wish there was a magic wand that could solve the situation that often makes me feel so crap. I wish that I could be more of a frequent mummy to him. I know that I am always his mummy whether I am at work or not but I wish I could be more present in his little life. So that when it’s me taking him to music class on a Wednesday morning instead of his nannie, he enjoys it and doesn’t get upset that nannie isn’t the one there with him. So that I could sit at home with him on a one to one basis and teach him how to write his letters and numbers.  So that it’s always me that is there to catch him when he falls or cuddle him when he has a bump.

I feel better knowing what is causing all these emotions right now.  Why I feel a constant longing for knowing what he’s doing and why I keep crying at the drop of a hat. I knew it couldn’t be just because he’s getting older, that there had to be something else going on.  And it simply boils down to that one thing that has been there for two years. The need that I have of seeing my son for longer than I do now and of the want of being able to watch him grow first hand rather than hearing it all second hand.

I know I have to just deal with it like I have been doing for the last couple of years. I know there is no quick fix to the situation. But that doesn’t make it any easier when I see my son’s life flashing away before me. It doesn’t make me feel any less sad than I am right now, knowing I can’t be the mother that I so badly want to be.