Cutting the Apron Strings!

I am in unfamiliar territory!


My boat has sailed off course, and my map is not helping....STELLA!


As a mum of 4 girls, I have always loved being a full time mum, and have taken my role very seriously over the last 18 years....I have used the parental manual over and over again....You know, the one they give you at the Hospital...just before your bring your cherub home!


Well anyway, my manual is sooooooo worn, it's almost unreadable.  

So I was looking up the chapter about, cutting the "Apron Strings", but could not find it in there.


A lot of my friends are in the younger children phase, and so are unable to help guide me through these narrow waters...actually, I think I have arrived at the 
Suez Canal....wow it's alot narrower than I thought....


My DH (Dear Husband) is the sort of man that fiercely guards his 4 girls....picture it....a bull mastif, big head, short stubby legs, screwed up face, lots of grunt, and a collar that says "Rocky" on it..(got the picture?), well that's my DH when it comes to his Girls.

Before my girls could even walk, DH had the "Boyfriend Application" already typed up in readiness for the first boy that "DARED" to come near and fein interest in "HIS GIRLS".....well....the time has come!


I warned DH, and tried to cushion the blow, but his BABY GIRL is about to turn 18!


It's not easy being a parent.  And now I understand what my mum went through with me (an Angel I tells ya!)


I have been wearing my "Apron" for 18 years, and have had the strings tied very tightly all that time, but recently realised that they need to be loosened....I have managed that quite well I think.  My DD (Dear Daughter) has managed to come through these unchartered waters unscathed, so far!  We are very proud of her, and her old fashioned values!  (I might like to think that we had something to do with that!)


But it is time, nonetheless, to start cutting the strings, not just loosening them!


About to start her new phase in her life, DD is starting University, and boy I am so ever grateful that we are living in Australia, and not the USA (I could not stand to send her away to College!).  I feel blessed to have her living at home whilst she is spreading her wings!  I can still cuddle her when she has a BOO BOO!  (Booooo HOOOOOO).......


We are about to have our first "BOY" over for dinner!  What a weird, wonderful and strange creature he will be, from planet "boy" or testosterone, to planet "pink" or oestrogen. (Too much oestrogen me thinks....it might balance things out!)


I am BOY...I come in peace!

So life is a changing.....Apron strings getting shorter, lots of bursts of tears (me that is)....proudly watching the changes my "BABY" is going through, and never really thinking I would actually get here.....(Did I mention I had ostrich traits, and like to stick my head in the sand?...NO....oh well now you know!)


So with reluctance, and a gentle knowing that I have to release her.....No point crying into my coffee, I just have to accept and trust.....


And cry, and trust, and cry and drink coffee, and cry and stella, and cry, and cry, and cry and cry and cry and cry....did I mention cry?


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