My baby girl turned 5 last week. For some reason, it’s the one birthday thus far that had me feeling all the feels, the one birthday that hit me the hardest.

There’s a reason there’s so many catch phrases In regards to time moving fast…”blink twice and you’ll miss it”, “it happened in the blink of an eye”, or simply put, “time flies”.

I’ve never truly felt the veracity of these until now. No matter how many people tell you, you never really stop to process just how true that is, until you’re faced with a milestone that forces you to stop and think.

Even if I did know it to be true, time waits for no one. Time doesn’t wait for me to fully grasp the notion of just how fleeting it is. It doesn’t wait for me to soak in every moment of my children’s lives with intention. Time keeps going. The daily grind beats away at you and quite literally before you know it, the newborn I was nursing on my chest for 2 hours at a time when she was 11 days old somehow turned 5. It feels as though in one single occurrence, time caught me in a tornado, spun me out and 5 years had somehow past.

With no exaggeration, that’s how it felt like with Ari turning 5. It felt like time had tangibly put me in a tailspin and I’m left dazed and astounded that my baby is no longer a baby.

Of course in the grand scheme of life, 5 is still a baby, but when you’re faced with a full grown child when in your mind this human is nothing but a toddler, in the context of childhood, no, she is not a baby.

Along with all these emotions (and the concept of time) that I was trying to process, my week was also coincidentally filled with pre-prep school meetings and prep orientations, so you can understand a little better why I was feeling like I was in a tailspin. Not only was I processing her impending teens (5 going on 15, am I right!), but was also thrown into school prep all in the same week. When I tell you my body and soul was not ready for this, I ain’t lying. I think what made me feel all the feels even harder was the fact my usually stoic husband was feeling more feels than me haha. As mums, we work at the speed of light. The daily grind waits for no one to catch up, so we’re constantly going, doing, being, hence, very little to no time left to process life as it is. Time waits for no one, and neither does the cooking, cleaning, shopping, laundry etc etc etc. I think that’s why my husband was feeling more than me (at the time). I hadn’t had the chance to stop and process just exactly what was happening. And when I did, boy did the floodgates descend into nothing haha.

Literally before you’re even ready, your child turns 5, is ready for school and is out of your house for 5 days a week, 8 hours a day and you’re no longer in complete control of your childs life. As much as we’d like to think we still have control over their lives, their days, their happenings, that’s not true anymore. School takes over…new teachers, new teachings, new friends, new people with new thoughts and new beliefs they’re being exposed to. 5 is monumental and I never stopped to think about it until it was happening.

I wish I had more time to process all this, but how would that have changed anything anyway? Would that have curbed my frustrations at her when trying to get her to kinder on time? Would it have given me better perspective when getting mad at her for not finishing her dinner? Would it have lessened my expectations of her packing up after herself? Maybe, maybe not, but would I still take the time if I had it? Of course. But alas, time waits for no one. So instead I shall ruminate on the last 5 years and appreciate every moment I can remember and will lament all the lost memories that I can’t.

5 years ago, my angel Ariya made me a mum. The day she came into this world was one of the longest, hardest most torturous days I’ve lived through haha. 41 hours of labour, ending in an emergency caesarean where I was in and out of consciousness on the table…maybe from pain, maybe from pure exhaustion, who knows, but what I do know is that was the day I realised how superhuman mums are. 43 hours later, with no sleep, they throw her on my chest and instructed me to breastfeed her immediately. I was so depleted of energy and strength that when I was holding her, I was dropping her out of my arms. It was also the moment I truly realised that my life was no longer about me and the comforts I needed, but about this tiny being that I just birthed out of my body, that relied entirely on me for her survival. And still does. And will probably still rely on me well past the acceptable age…because lets be honest, I still need my mum too.

There are so many moments in the last 5 years that I can remember like they were yesterday, but I’m so sad for the “mundane” moments that will forever be lost to time. You tell yourself with each new child you have, that you’ll be more intentional with their time. You’ll be more intentional to document and to remember the unimportant important moments. But again, time robs you of that, despite how well intentioned you may have been. Life gets busy, schedules need to be kept and with that, time sneaks by, and before you know it, you’re celebrating your eldest’s 5^th birthday wondering who is this beautiful, (partly) grown human in-front of you.

I’m a sentimental person, so I think every milestone for the next 30, 40, 50 years will have me feeling nostalgic. Nostalgic for the life I willingly chose to give up to be a mum, nostalgic for those feelings of utter shock/excitement/relief when seeing the two lines on the pregnancy stick for the first time ever, nostalgic for those moments I first felt her movements inside my body knowing she was alive and safe inside me, nostalgic for those secret moments we shared in the middle of the night while our whole world was asleep around us, nostalgic for the first time she ever called me her best friend, nostalgic for it all.

I hope this milestone serves as a cautionary tale of sorts, that reminds me to stop every so often and take it all in. Take in all the precious, private moments between us. Document what I can and ruminate on it. File it away in the inner depths of me so I don’t forget the little things. The million little things that culminate into this wonderfully crazy life that is ours and ours alone.

So here’s to my baby girl. In the last 5 years she taught me more patience than I ever thought I was capable of. She taught me a love so deep it’s overwhelming. She taught me the type of mother I’m striving to be. She taught me the type of woman I want to emulate for her. And she taught me how incomplete my life was before her.

To Ariya. You’re my centre of my world, and I’d choose you over and over and over in a million different lifetimes.

This was excerpt 18.