Before You Were Mine

I have always wanted to be a mother. And when I say always, I really do mean as far back as I can remember, when I was obsessed with dolls and read the chapter of The Faraway Tree where one of the girls gets a living dolly who can walk and talk with absolute, wicked jealousy. For years I imagined this future child, and the future me that would be her mother. Looking back, it was almost always a daughter that I imagined. When I was working part time as a nursery teacher while studying and was surrounded by two year olds daily, I thought of her as a toddler. I imagined her dark haired and smiling. Other times I imagined her older, quiet and shy and perhaps a little withdrawn. I loved most of all to imagine that she loved me, that we were incredibly close.

I liked to think about happy times. Perfect days, summer holidays, Christmas, birthdays and oh, Mother's Day. Sunny weekends, walks and games and holding her hand. But just sometimes, I liked to think about the potential difficult days. Vague stresses that were hard to clearly envision at that time, days when things went wrong and difficult tasks piled up, times when we would feel sad or overwhelmed or angry. I imagined dropping everything and going out with her on an adventure, doing something wonderful together to cheer her up and let her know she's my number one priority.

I'm writing this with the weight of her warm, sleeping little self all curled up on my lap from her nap. Still in her pink pyjamas. My arm around her. Her soft, snuffly little hedgehog snores.

Lately we've had a few rather stressful days. Too much housework, too many things to do, too under-the-weather and tired and grouchy. Yesterday I decided that enough was enough, and despite the big To Do list, Audrey and I headed out to the swimming pool. We rode the bus together, sitting side by side in her favourite spot at the top by the front window. She chatted to me happily, and decided to read the Metro for a while and eat bread sticks.

We walked together from the bus stop to the swimming pool. Audrey waved at the green person when we crossed the road. I held her hand and felt like a mother.

When we got to the changing room she shyly hid behind my leg and sadly whispered "Come on, Mama. Let's go home." I told her we were going to have so much fun. I told her we could go home if she really wanted, but didn't she want to just try splashing in the pool a little bit first? She perked up at the sight of her swimming costume, and we got changed and headed out. She was a little unsure at first, as she always is, but soon she was splashing away in the shallow water at the pool's edge. She held out her little arms to me - "Mama, get you hug!" I carried her into the middle of the water. She relaxed slowly, began to laugh. "That way, that way!" she said into my ear, over the noise of the other families playing. I swam her around the shallow pool, her little legs kicking, her arms grabbing tight around my neck. I felt like a mother.

We stayed for over an hour in the pool, then showered and dressed again. Audrey looked after the locker key very carefully. She shivered. "Wow. So cold, Mama." I wrapped her up in a big, soft orange towel and rubbed her fine, curly, coppery baby hair dry. We went upstairs and had lunch together in the cafe, sitting side by side on red plastic chairs and eating from the same plate. I felt like a mother. I could have wept with how strongly I felt it, sitting next to my daughter and watching the children in the soft play through big glass windows. And then I remembered, like a wave, all the years I'd imagined this and wanted it, and truly appreciated how lucky I was.

She fell asleep in my arms on the bus home. Later that night she looked at me from across our living room and smiled. "Mama so pretty," she said. She ran over and climbed into my lap, and I wondered how much longer I have with her small enough to curl up on me like this. I wonder if she'll ever know how much I love her, and what she means to me.

Friends

Last week we had some friends round to play. We made Valentine's cards, played with bunny rabbits and watched The Aristocats as many times as possible. Fun times!

These sorts of days always end in a messy house and a very happy Audrey Bea.

Twenty minutes of conversation, written as it was happening

This morning after waving Ian off to work from the window, Audrey turns to me. "Mama, see Ally? Go see dragons, dinosaur-roars?" This is her way of asking if we can go with our friend Ally to the museum, where there is a children's play area full of dragons, and an exhibit with enormous dinosaur skeletons. "Wow," she says whenever we go. "Look, Mama, dinosaur-rex!" Her favourite thing to do at the museum is "See animals!" and so we always head first to the big section about the natural world - evolution, ecology, biology. Audrey touches the bubbly shapes of the "atoms" on the DNA model with her fingertips. She touches the rough and smooth sides of huge, naturally formed crystals. She tries to name each animal, and there are thousands - lion, big snake, little snake, elephant, hippo, really big bird (that's an albatross, darling), dodo. At the top is a sandpit where children can excavate dinosaur bones, and a model of our planet with an atmosphere that grows turbulent in different ways depending on how you spin it. There is a rhino with its horn missing. There are colouring pencils. "Love dinosaur-roars," she sighs.

After talking about the museum she climbs up onto the box where we keep her soft toys, and pretends to be "Trapped, Mama, oh no! Oh dear, got trapped!" Her little hands on each side of her face - oh no! "Shall I save you, darling?" I ask, holding out my arms to her. "No, Mama, no. " She waves me away. "Sofa, sofa." And then, when I obediently sit on the sofa, she nods and says "Good idea."

She's looking for one of her soft toys, a moose actually, from Canada, but she thinks it's a deer. "Where deer gone? Deer! Where are you? Where are you?" I fetch it from the toy box, hold it up for her. "No, Mama, no this one teddy bear deer." She wants to see a real deer. I tell her that where I grew up there were muntjacs who drank from a pond in the next village over. I tell her maybe one day we'll see a real deer at Nana B and Granddad Pop's house, but by now she's forgotten all about the deer and is "driving" her little yellow toy race car up and down the window. "See car?" she asks. "Mrrmmm mmmrrrrrrrmmmmmm..."

She holds the car up to me to take, and I drive it up her arms, across her shoulders. She peals with laughter. "Mama, how 'bout Graham? See Graham?" - "Not today, darling. Later." - "Okay... how 'bout... PIG!" She snorts and snorts. "Mama, pig, pleeeeeease." I join in with our game of pretending-to-be-pigs. She grins so big. "LOVE pigs. Daddy Pig eat chocolate cake." She snorts louder, loudest. She picks up a soft blue cloth.

She's dusting photographs in frames on the window ledge. This is one of the ways Audrey helps me with the housework. "There," she says. "Nice and clean." She points at the people in the pictures, almost all of them have Audrey in them. "Little Audrey," she says. She counts them, "One Audreys, one Audreys, three Audreys."

I think about how little she is, still, and about how fast she's growing, how she's only a few months off two years old. I think about the photos I still have of her when she was born, and how I could hold her with one hand. I clap my hands. "Let's get ready for kindergym, okay?" She nods, solemnly. "Yes. Let's get coat. Wellie boots. Ready steady GO! See you later."