My Toddler Florence Turns 18 Months Old (and This is What She’s Taught Us)

Florence is 18 months old today (full-on toddler territory here we come) and this significant milestone (to our family) has coincided with me feeling 100% myself again mentally and physically so please don’t lose hope mums and dads if you’re currently drowning in the trenches of parenthood because I see you, I was you and there’s light at the end of the tunnel.

I feel like this current turning point in my Matrescence journey (and there have been others from 10 months on before now where I began healing from an anxious pregnancy post-miscarriage, and a traumatic time around the end of my third trimester and Florence’s birth) has arisen from a culmination of more consistent sleep, settled hormones (hello progesterone) and finding my stride as a mum of three (spanning a teen, tween and a toddler) with the help of my folks, elevating my life from ‘survival mode’ to ‘starting to thrive again mode’. I work on evenings, shoot campaigns on weekends and have found a way to work flexibly, smartly and without missing out on time with my baby (and her brothers).

…Despite the sleep deprivation, wild hormones, struggle with the parenting/ work juggle, the past 18 months haven’t always been hard and two emotions/ experiences can be exist at the same time: you can feel completely overwhelmed with responsibility but also deeply in love with, and grateful for your baby. I found myself laughing one minute, and crying the next. Motherhood is a wild ride like no other. Deeply painful, heartwarmingly life-affirming and wondrous but tumultuous at times too.

We are unsurprisingly besotted with our longed-for, much-manifested, dream come true, Florence, who has taught us so much in such a short time. Lessons from Flo span: marvelling at sheep whenever you see them (which is a lot now we’re up North), to sing and dance when the music moves you, to share and simultaneously steal food when the opportunity arises, especially smoked salmon (her fave). To kiss and hug those you love (I’ve never met a more affectionate child, she kisses the screen when Ms. Rachel comes on) and to ‘kick, kick, kick’ a football every single day!

Oh and gobble that dairy-free choc with abandon (her milk and egg allergy means it’s vegan choc all the way).

Florence is brilliantly bold (she definitely possesses Main Character Energy, waving at her baby peers like a Royal child, at the classes we attend, and always rushing to the main stage in every Church Hall we find ourselves in!). Florence is not a wallflower!

She’s also utterly fearless (sliding down the bigger slide in the park on her tummy face-down no less, recently) and seeing her innate confidence shine through that we’re all born with but life can wear down, makes me that bit braver to boot-and as protective as ever to not let life tamper with Florence’s joie de vivre.

Motherhood makes even the most laid back amongst us (which wasn’t me to start with) into a overthinking worrier, it’s part and parcel of keeping your kids safe, a primitive response to giving life I suppose but I don’t want to adult from a place of fear, I want to be more fearless. More Florence. So I will be.

Thank you Florence for lighting up our lives.

I know you know how loved you are, I can see it in your happy eyes and beaming smile, in the love you spread (the bear hugs you give), in the way you dance and sing your way through life. You are a moonbeam, a ray of sunshine, a delight.

 

Photos taken at the beautiful Coach House and Stables at a recent gifted stay.