And then they start school. You hand them over for 6 hours of the day, and your life is your own again. You drop them off, get home and see that CBeebies is still playing. You can turn it off if you want, but you don't. The house is silent, bar the ticking clock and the occasional boiled kettle. You can do whatever you want for 6 hours. But you generally don't.
That is, however, if you only have one child. If, like me, you have a younger human in your household, your day didn't stop. You carry on watching CBeebies and pulling Lego from between your toes. You still have apples to cut up, and tears to wipe. It is almost business as usual, with a school run thrown in for good measure.
But then, it's time for the smaller human to go to school. "It's fine" you tell yourself. "I'm a school run veteran."
Until you get home, and the clock is ticking loudly. There really is no reason for CBeebies to be still playing, and you are completely and totally alone. You initially relish the freedom, with your plans ranging from dancing around the house to having a nap by yourself (and not with a child, Mr Spike, White Cat, Black Cat, Little Lion and Snurgles). Again, you do not. Instead you catch up on the correspondence you were ignoring. You vacuum the stairs. You stare through the window at Mr-Next-Door for a bit. You constantly check your watch for fear of missing the school run. You never understood people when they told you that an empty house is an unhappy house, but you finally believe.
It is somehow worse to drop your youngest off at school. They are the family baby. They are the ones who kept you busy when you dropped off the older ones on their first days. You couldn't miss them, you were busy with the baby. But now who is left to look after you when someone else is looking after them?
So Ava went in for her first taster session at school today. She bounded around the yard, confident as always, a full head and shoulders taller than most of the others. She scooped up a child she recognised from nursery, and played tig for a while. I watched as the other children hung to their parents, some sobbing, and the look of worry and fear in their parents eyes. I was lucky that my eldest was also quite confident, as he was not a hanger-on or a crier. He was nothing compared to his sister, however, who was now telling some of the terrified parents that she "likes butter because the buttercup said so".
"At least you know she'll be ok." One of the mothers-with-child-attached said to me.
"Oh yes, she's very independent. She's been looking forward to this since her brother started."
Mindless chatter. Small talk. Very conscious that Ava is making herself very known, and silently proud of her confidence and personality.
She is getting giddy now, running to the point of falling. She got straight up, declared herself "fine" and carried on. I called her over, grabbing her attention for a moment.
"Look sweetheart, it's almost half past." I show her my watch in a bid to distract her from her run. She is 4. She has no concept of the things on my watch beside the numbers. I could have very easily said "Look, banana fish underpants" and meant more to her. I only showed her my watch to make her stop running, even for a moment, so she would be still and calm. She shouted "OKAY!" as she ran off, having glanced at my watch for a quarter of a second.
The mother beside me must have noticed this, because she immediately peeled her child off her and made him recite the letters of his name. She corrected him as he said "eye" instead of "i", and probably felt pretty good about herself for showing me that her kid has basic alphabet skills.
I thought nothing of it until later. Then it hit me. She thought my child could tell the time. The child who was running around the yard shouting "BUTTERCUPS!". She thought that I was showing her my watch and reinforcing what she already knew.
How much of an arsehole must I have looked?! To her, it was "my daughter knows complex Key Stage 2 skills. What can yours do?!". To me it was "Please stay still" whilst hoping the slow moving second hand would have caught her attention enough to make my wish come true.
Ava went in just fine, without so much as a goodbye hug. Not though my choice, you understand. I would have loved nothing more than a little squeeze from my baby girl. She ambled off, leaving us parents standing around clueless about our lives from that moment. I had made myself look like a show-off, it was all downhill from here.
Fast forward 2 hours of coffee and solemnly feeling useless, it was time to go back to school. We reassembled ourselves by the reception door, eager to hear about their morning. We hear the tiny footsteps that can only belong to our little cherubs, and the voice of their new teacher.
"This is our headteacher."
"Hello children," he calls, booming but warm.
A lone, childish voice - "Hello!"
The mum who believes my daughter to be a MENSA candidate turns to me.
"That'll be yours."
There was no decipherable way to tell which child it was from behind the door. Only context clues. The fact that Ava stood confidently and independently for the drop off has obviously spoken volumes. She is the loud kid. The confident kid. The more than likely to be a bit bossy kid.
So to conclude, I brag about my genius child who only needs glance at a clock for a nanosecond before deciphering the time, and don't hug her as she enters the classroom for the first time. I am already, more than likely, the Mum To Avoid.
And she doesn't even start until September.
