Dear Kids

It’s been amazing watching you all grow up so much this last year. To see you taking on responsibilities and being able to do so many more things for yourself. It makes me feel proud. I always worried getting to this stage would make me feel redundant, like you didn’t need me anymore. But now I know that’s not true. You all need me more than ever, just in a different way.

It makes me happy that you can make your own breakfasts, get yourselves to school, remember to take your togs because you have swimming today.  And it’s really helpful that I can ask you to do the baking, change your sheets on your beds and go to the dairy when we are out of milk.

So I know you are ready.

I’ve seen you plan your own playdates and sleepovers, figure out wild and wonderful schemes to raise money for causes you care about and negotiate an extra hour of screen time to play Minecraft.

So I know you are capable.

I’ve seen you nurse baby birds back to life, tend to tomato plants until they bear fruit and win awards for helping kids younger and less confident than yourselves.

So I know you care.

Which is why I know this Mothers Day can be different from the ones that have gone before. Remember those years when I used to help you make my breakfast, then sneak back to bed and pretend to be so surprised when you delivered it to me? Those years when Daddy did all the organising and let you take all the credit? That year when you said you’d made me cards but had forgotten to bring them home from school?

This year will be different.

Don’t worry. I’m not asking for much. No expensive gift with a price tag that is supposed to reflect the enormity of your love for me. No extravagant lunch in a noisy, overcrowded restaurant. No, my needs are much more simple than that. I don’t need presents.

Just let me sleep in. Let this be the one day this year when I don’t have to haul my constantly exhausted self out of bed to make breakfast, construct a nutritious lunchbox, find sports gear or prevent you from harming yourself or each other.

Bring me breakfast in bed. It doesn’t have to be something out of Cuisine magazine or be full of exotic ingredients. It just needs to be made for me, delivered to me and not leave behind the mother of all messes for me to clean up once I’m done.

Write me a card. Or a note. Any handwritten words of love and appreciation that show you’ve taken at least 60 seconds away from Minecraft to think about what I mean to you.

Spend some time with me doing something I enjoy. This doesn’t include spending an hour clipping you in and out, and in and out, and in and out of harnesses at some climbing wall. Or standing around making small talk with complete strangers while you have the time of your lives at the coolest playground ever. Think about the things I love doing, the things we love doing together, and let’s just do that.

You see, just like you, my needs are simple. And it’s the simple things in life that always end up meaning the most.