Thirteen Years

Dear Evelina

It has been such a long time since I have written one of these letters to you. When you were small, I was so good at writing to you every month to tell you what you were up to and how you were growing. Now you are a teenager and you can see for yourself that you are changing. When you look at photos from a year ago, you are as shocked as we are at the difference. Since you have started at secondary school, you have continued to develop into a wonderful young person.

My first ever blog that I wrote was when I was 7 weeks pregnant in March 2010. It read as follows:

So I am now into the seventh week.  It’s been a tough week with study commitments, but thankfully that’s behind me and I am now started to relax.  I was getting myself into a bit of a state because for a start, I have started to get mild morning sickness which has made me feel icky but more difficult was dealing with a stressful situation.  The more stressed I got about my work, the most stressed I was that I was getting stressed which just made me panic and generally feel rubbish.  I am glad that is all behind me and although I still have more studying to do, I will just have to be more prepared to try to avoid this in the future.

I have to say reading that made me chuckle as I never did manage to be more prepared about any of my studies. Luckily, you did not take after me at all. I am so proud of how you have settled into grammar school life. Despite having relatively high demands on you for homework and standards, you have not once been late submitting work nor have you received any negative behaviour points at all since you started in September 2022. You have a strong work ethic and you also have a lot of personal responsibility, getting yourself up early every day for a ridiculously early bus. You don’t complain; you just get on with it.

It is also great to see that your friendships have settled down. It is such a hard part of growing up as a girl and it triggered so many memories of feeling excluded, hurt and generally desperate to fit in. I have really struggled with this particular phase of motherhood as you have started to pull away, spending more time in your bedroom, chatting with friends, and not needing me nearly as much. I also see so much of myself in you that it is difficult to remember to let you figure stuff out for yourself sometimes. I may think I have been through it all before but it is never going to be exactly the same and much as we are very similar in a lot of ways, we also have our differences.

So a little about you. I don’t need to say what new physical development you have mastered although I suppose I could mention that you are very good at cricket and sport in general (despite your protestations). Nor do I need to mention the new words you have learned, though you are a very talented writer. Your favourite subject at the moment is Spanish so I am delighted that you are a budding linguist. You also enjoy HIstory and English (of course) and whilst you don’t always love Maths, you are still an all-rounder so you do well in most subjects.

You are keen to get started with things like babysitting – in no time you will be able to look after Austin for us – and your current ambitions include being a lawyer or some sort of advocate for people who need help. You are doing well with your piano and are currently in the process of preparing for your Grade Two (you achieved a distinction in your Grade One despite leaving the exam in tears thinking you had failed!). You are way too tough on yourself and I worry about you almost constantly.

You are an amazing big sister who has so much love and patience for her little brother (who loves you back so much). We are so lucky that you get along well even though there are five years between you (and until February, six!). You are going to be a big part of making this Christmas extra magical for Austin and for that, I am very grateful.

I could rave about how wonderful you are until the cows come home but as it is almost time to go to pick you up from school (no bus home tonight on your birthday, thank you very much), I will just end by saying, thank you for being my baby girl. You will always be my baby girl.

Mama x