thanks lovely! it has been really good to have a break actually but I'm looking forward to getting back to this fantastic community here on substack! I've missed you too! xxx
Ahh Milli, how good to have you back. I always read your post as I cook dinner on Friday. I laughed out loud and totally felt your pain. The horror of getting it all wrong .. it’s all my fault! Total woman response! Welcome back xxxc
Great to have you back! Completely relatable, and I would also regret singing Meryl Streep style too! Mine are 3 and (newly) 8 and summer felt like a blur of rainy days, broken down cars and some beach days thrown in...but all too fast and I wasn't ready for school to start again! Reassuring to know it's not just me! I feel also like I should have something new in the style of a new term to the point I even enrolled in another course this week so I could be starting something too!
it's true that Autumn is a time for new starts as well! I only have a few days of feeling glum. It's just the kids going back really. I do love having them in the house! Thanks for the pre-order! I'd better finish it then!! xx
Welcome back Milli. Don't worry you don't need to believe the "only 18 summers" doomsday prediction. My children are 57, 50 and 47 and have 7 grandkids altogether. We see each other regularly despite 2 of them living in different cities. I often go and stay with them where there's role reversal and I get to be looked after....(if they come to you they still revert to being the children🤣).We have always all holidayed and gathered together several times a year regardless of where we are all living.We rotate each others houses or rent big holiday houses in a variety of places and everyone turns up. My 3 brothers and sisters in law also have this annual ritual. The joy of it! I predict your kids will always come back to you Milli and the missed plane holiday will become family lore!!
That is SUCH a lovely comment Karen and it has really reassured me. How absolutely wonderful, that sounds just brilliant. Thank you for saying this. xxx
Oh my goodness, every muscle in my body clenched as I read that, missing a flight is such a horror of mine (I've nearly done it, twice!). We are the same age, I'm also 50 next year, and I feel so much of what you write. My oldest has just started secondary school (I was a late starter at motherhood!) and it's such a mix of emotions. He's strolling through every new challenge, while I have sleepless nights about letting him have a phone, him missing the bus, him forgetting his homework... I love watching him flourish, but it's hard watching him grow away from us, ever so slightly.
It is really hard especially that transition to secondary 😪 I will do it for the last time next September with my fluffy one 😭😭😭 sob. After that I think it gets a bit easier as they start to be more self sufficient. Hugs and solidarity! X
Now that first bit was a stressful read ha ha. I very, very nearly missed our flight in early August. My partner was panicking rushing, I said its 'its 5am, I need a coffee'. My Insistence on stopping for that coffee, almost cost us the flight. Perhaps we had 31 mins to go. Just made it. He was not happy! Glad you made it out there in the end. I can also relate to dropping something off a bridge. Aged 10 in Monets garden in France my camera slipped out and into the river below the famous Monets Bridge.
I am almost 42 with two very young children and considering one more. I often wonder what menopause will be like with very young children. Straddling Crone and Mother archetypes at the same time....
Do you follow Jane Hardewicke-Collings? She is on instagram. She did a post fairly recently about older mothers having menopause and teenagers at the same time. Will that be you? You definitely won't be 'crone'...Jane talks about Maga, the stage between mother and crone...it's a great concept. https://janehardwickecollings.com/introducing-maga/
As an independent midwife most of my clients were ‘older mothers’ - there is no doubt that it is more challenging - my short advice is to try really hard not to think… older women tend to lead their mothering through their intellect when it is the instinct that comes more naturally to younger women is what is needed IMO. Any experience with other people’s children counts for very little (hence the contented little baby nonsense attitude- who wrote that?) anyway, in for a penny in for a pound… if you have young children already why not more? There is no doubt that menopause/perimenopause is akin to the upheaval of puberty - but we are built for it - follow your heart…
Thank you. I actually traced my maternal family line and my great great grandmother had 10 kids. She was 44 when she had her youngest, so hey, the women in my line have done this, which feels good to know somehow 😁
I had an aunt who got married at 31 and then had 10 children (1 set twins) - all born at home (50/60s) and she smoked Woodbines… in labour apparently! 😳
With you on the missing plane thing. I’ve skin-of-my-teeth-just-caught plenty of them. It’s one of the worst feelings….daft, really, cos there’s (almost) always another plane if you miss it.
I’m doing the ‘only 18 summers’ thing but with grandchildren now.
One of them (aged 6) to me (on our way to the beach, on one of the very few beach days we’ve had this year), ‘gran, will you be alive when I’m a teenager?’
Obv, I used the opp for a quick arithmetic lesson…..but the actual *answer* can only be ‘???’
Welcome back Milli. I don’t know who else I’m speaking for, but I’ve missed you.
thanks lovely! it has been really good to have a break actually but I'm looking forward to getting back to this fantastic community here on substack! I've missed you too! xxx
Ahh Milli, how good to have you back. I always read your post as I cook dinner on Friday. I laughed out loud and totally felt your pain. The horror of getting it all wrong .. it’s all my fault! Total woman response! Welcome back xxxc
Glad my horrors cheered you up hahaha. xxx
Great to have you back! Completely relatable, and I would also regret singing Meryl Streep style too! Mine are 3 and (newly) 8 and summer felt like a blur of rainy days, broken down cars and some beach days thrown in...but all too fast and I wasn't ready for school to start again! Reassuring to know it's not just me! I feel also like I should have something new in the style of a new term to the point I even enrolled in another course this week so I could be starting something too!
P.S. just pre-ordered your book too 😁
it's true that Autumn is a time for new starts as well! I only have a few days of feeling glum. It's just the kids going back really. I do love having them in the house! Thanks for the pre-order! I'd better finish it then!! xx
Welcome back Milli. Don't worry you don't need to believe the "only 18 summers" doomsday prediction. My children are 57, 50 and 47 and have 7 grandkids altogether. We see each other regularly despite 2 of them living in different cities. I often go and stay with them where there's role reversal and I get to be looked after....(if they come to you they still revert to being the children🤣).We have always all holidayed and gathered together several times a year regardless of where we are all living.We rotate each others houses or rent big holiday houses in a variety of places and everyone turns up. My 3 brothers and sisters in law also have this annual ritual. The joy of it! I predict your kids will always come back to you Milli and the missed plane holiday will become family lore!!
That is SUCH a lovely comment Karen and it has really reassured me. How absolutely wonderful, that sounds just brilliant. Thank you for saying this. xxx
Oh my goodness, every muscle in my body clenched as I read that, missing a flight is such a horror of mine (I've nearly done it, twice!). We are the same age, I'm also 50 next year, and I feel so much of what you write. My oldest has just started secondary school (I was a late starter at motherhood!) and it's such a mix of emotions. He's strolling through every new challenge, while I have sleepless nights about letting him have a phone, him missing the bus, him forgetting his homework... I love watching him flourish, but it's hard watching him grow away from us, ever so slightly.
It is really hard especially that transition to secondary 😪 I will do it for the last time next September with my fluffy one 😭😭😭 sob. After that I think it gets a bit easier as they start to be more self sufficient. Hugs and solidarity! X
Now that first bit was a stressful read ha ha. I very, very nearly missed our flight in early August. My partner was panicking rushing, I said its 'its 5am, I need a coffee'. My Insistence on stopping for that coffee, almost cost us the flight. Perhaps we had 31 mins to go. Just made it. He was not happy! Glad you made it out there in the end. I can also relate to dropping something off a bridge. Aged 10 in Monets garden in France my camera slipped out and into the river below the famous Monets Bridge.
I am almost 42 with two very young children and considering one more. I often wonder what menopause will be like with very young children. Straddling Crone and Mother archetypes at the same time....
Do you follow Jane Hardewicke-Collings? She is on instagram. She did a post fairly recently about older mothers having menopause and teenagers at the same time. Will that be you? You definitely won't be 'crone'...Jane talks about Maga, the stage between mother and crone...it's a great concept. https://janehardwickecollings.com/introducing-maga/
Yes, I saw that. I love her
As an independent midwife most of my clients were ‘older mothers’ - there is no doubt that it is more challenging - my short advice is to try really hard not to think… older women tend to lead their mothering through their intellect when it is the instinct that comes more naturally to younger women is what is needed IMO. Any experience with other people’s children counts for very little (hence the contented little baby nonsense attitude- who wrote that?) anyway, in for a penny in for a pound… if you have young children already why not more? There is no doubt that menopause/perimenopause is akin to the upheaval of puberty - but we are built for it - follow your heart…
Thank you. I actually traced my maternal family line and my great great grandmother had 10 kids. She was 44 when she had her youngest, so hey, the women in my line have done this, which feels good to know somehow 😁
I had an aunt who got married at 31 and then had 10 children (1 set twins) - all born at home (50/60s) and she smoked Woodbines… in labour apparently! 😳
ha ha!
Welcome back.
With you on the missing plane thing. I’ve skin-of-my-teeth-just-caught plenty of them. It’s one of the worst feelings….daft, really, cos there’s (almost) always another plane if you miss it.
I’m doing the ‘only 18 summers’ thing but with grandchildren now.
One of them (aged 6) to me (on our way to the beach, on one of the very few beach days we’ve had this year), ‘gran, will you be alive when I’m a teenager?’
Obv, I used the opp for a quick arithmetic lesson…..but the actual *answer* can only be ‘???’
😀
Oh god doing the maths for ages etc is AWFUL. Don't do it!!
Yes there was another plane but could have done without the holiday costing 25% extra!
Thanks for the welcome back. It's good to be back! xxx
I’m with you on the deadlines - I have 21days until I submit my thesis - looking forward to seeing you and all on zoom for other writing …
Oh Lynn! Go go go! You've got this!! You can do it!!! xxxx
Oh, this is so lovely Milli, thank you.