ONE OF the last events of Christmas in our house is the Young Wan’s birthday which takes place tomorrow. Once that happens, other than the tree going down, Christmas is over.
I can’t believe she is going to be 17, mm just had a feeling of deja vu there.
Anyway Happy Birthday darling, jaysus 17, FFS. I need to lie down.
ACH I was making myself something to eat earlier and found myself lifting two plates out of the cupboard and of course herself is in France. Sighing I put it back.
Then I went to lift a spoon out of the drawer and it was dirty, the next was really dirty, the next was greasy, the fourth meh, finally on the fifth go, a clean spoon.
The knife and fork weren’t far off either. I sighed again for completely different reasons. One of my clean-ups while she is away involves the cutlery drawer. What joy; sighs again.
MY WEE baby, ha, is off on a school exchange trip tomorrow for a week and a half to Bergerac in France, no not the Channel Islands that is Bergerac the detective you eejit 
To say we are having a stressful evening would not go far enough.
She also made plans to go to get a lift to the airport with her pal’s Dad only it involved me waving her off at the house before I went to work! As if… So hopefully they won’t mind that I bring her up a little while before arranged, its too late now to phone and arrange it. I want to wave her off with someone I know will get her to where she needs to be, not leave her at the house for her to make her own way, once again, as if… Unfortunately I can’t bring her out myself, work is too mad and I have already taken time off to sort her out for the trip. I cannot take a morning off on our busiest day of the week. Can I stop feeling guilty about that now please?
Anyway the dog who was pacing around the suitcase earlier, she knows what it means, has now stuck her head between two cushions. And of course as soon as I tried to quietly lift out my camera from my bag, she moved. She is a dreadful model. Ah fantastic she has put it back again
Despite telling the Young Wan to make sure everything she needed was put to the side there has been a lot of ‘where is this other shoe’ or ‘do you plan on bringing a coat? Currently the washing machine is washing a coat which I will somehow dry between now and the morning (once again thank the gods for central heating).
Anyway I am away back to work. Passport, check, spending money, check, no liquids in hand baggage, check. Now where is that other shoe?
I JUST got a text from the Young Wan which says (and I quote exactly):
“Im got picked 4 france.! =D =D YAY”
Mmm Im got delighted for her!.
Wonder where she’s going to find the €500 for this exchange trip. It is something we have discussed in theory where we agree she should take part in this exchange trip, however we never discussed money until last night when she was telling me she was surprised it was €500 as she thought it would be more… Jaysus they are very good with others money.
So even if the money is found between now and the dealdine which I suspect maybe sooner rather than later, she may sort out her bedroom as you wouldn’t voluntarily make anyone go in there, never mind stay.
RM column May 16 – From young child to young woman
I keep having to shake myself recently, all of a sudden I have gone from being Mum to a young child to being the mother of a young woman. Over recent years I have gone from being the ‘young woman’ to unknowingly passing that mantle onto herself.
All of a sudden new stages and new frontiers are creeping into our lives; we have already started talking about college while the Young Wan is talking about her gap year.
Certainly a lot of this talk is a little premature. But I cannot believe she is coming into her last two years of secondary education. It doesn’t seem that long ago that I was worrying about where she would go to secondary school, in fact finding her a primary school wasn’t that long ago either. So I suppose thinking about the next two years is a case of forewarned being forearmed.
Like many other young people the Young Wan would love to go to college away from home. I have many emotions about this, the normal ‘I don’t want my baby going away from home at such a young age’ to the inevitable feeling that I am going to have to relinquish some of my motherly duties to a little grown-up.
Course it goes without saying that I will always worry, that’ll never ever stop but there will come a time and really soon where she will be responsible for herself and for her actions completely.
One of the problems with her going away to college, aside from my own reluctance to let go of my baby is that I don’t have the money to send her. Saving for college was an ideal that I was never able to manage. I could start a fund now however winning the lottery aside I don’t think I would be able to save enough for her to study away between now and two years time.
We talked about this recently and she looked horrified at the thought of having to live at home whilst at college. After telling her that worse things happen at sea I explained how her life at 16 years old is not the same as her life as an 18-year-old college student will be.
It makes sense to me to live at home having access to clean laundry, your meals put on the table, food in the fridge, your own bed and own bedroom, no bills and steady access to the Bank of Mum. Sure what more could you want?
I think she is beginning to see the benefits of this particularly when I explained how I can barely make all the household expenses let alone how she could do that as a student.
Then last night the Young Wan had a bright idea, one that she has obviously mused over with a pal and they both thought it to be a great idea. The last couple of summers she has spent the summer with her Nanny in Turkey and this year her pal is going over too so they thought they could travel together.
Once I stopped laughing I explained there is no way in hell would she be travelling to Turkey on her own, even with a 17-year-old pal.
“But I’m 16, I can travel on my own”, she indignantly said. Again once I stopped laughing I explained to her that it would not be happening. She may be 16 and she may be a young woman but she is not travelling by herself just yet. I told her that maybe this time next year I would feel differently, I doubt it, but you never know.
