My 10th anniversary of being a mum. A decade of parenting!

Ten years ago today my daughter was born, just before 6 in the morning - so as I write this it was a decade ago almost to the minute.Her birthday presents are piled up in the living room, and I’m almost excited as she (hopefully) is about watching her open them!! (Maybe even more excited since I’m awake and she is presumably still asleep!).I can’t believe she’s 10, because it doesn’t feel like ten years. Or rather, it feels like both the longest and shortest 10 years of my life. It’s flown by, but some of it was a long, hard slog. Does that make any sense??In my better moments, I feel like I’ve done ok, as a mum. I think the fact she’s such a great kid has more to do with luck than good parenting. (Her little sister is a nightmare by comparison!!)As I have so often during these ten years, I feel sorry that she’ll never know her dad. I never knew him either, bar a few fumbling minutes in the dark corner of a club. I was 19, and drunk, and careless. There were many times especially at the start when I regretted my carelessness, or used phrases like ‘ruined my life’, but the truth is, my life is so much richer today than I had ever imagined it could be. I feel sorry for all the times I ever described her as a ‘mistake’, even just in my own head.I have no way to find her dad, I wouldn’t have recognised him on the street later that night, let alone now. He was tall, black, handsome... and I know know he must have been a clever guy, because my daughter is fiercely intelligent and she certainly doesn’t get that from me!! I have some talent as a musician but academically I was thick as two short planks. But my girl - she knows about physics and chemistry and maths which are way ahead of her class level. She’s going to classes three years ahead... the school are already talking about early entry for exams, but I don’t want to push her too hard. She loves it at the moment, and that’s all that matters for now.She has never asked about her dad, though she must be curious. My ex partner is a good dad to her and her sister, but she obviously knows he’s not her father. (Her dad being black, she’s mixed race of course, so it’s obvious.) But she’s a happy girl and that’s a conversation for the future.I am endlessly proud of both my daughters, and whatever mistakes I’ve made in my life (and boy, there have been a few), I can take comfort in the one thing which I think I’ve done pretty well. Somehow, I have raised an amazing young lady.There’s no point to this except to say high five to all those other parents on this amazing, maddening, exhausting journey!! Here’s to the next 10 years! via /r/Parenting https://ift.tt/2QjV9bJ