Direct quote from Immy Squidge, age 6-and-a-half, July 2023

These words tell me so much. About my daughter. About how hard I have worked on myself. About how much my approach to the immense job of parenting has been so positively impacted by those first two points.

They came on a day when Kev & I walked into her school hall, met with her huge learning journal. Everything about it was incredible. Her letter formation, her sentence structure, her Welsh, if you please! (I, as an English native, cannot write yn Gymraeg at all. She loves it.

Her first term topic was love. The classmates had quoted each other on what they love. Immy’s quote was “I love Gabby.” No sullen siblings in our house.

When asked to write about what she loved, she’d drawn a picture of her and I together and written “I love to play with my mummy.” My heart soared. I am not a traditional player, full of imagination. Adulthood has stolen that from me and I avoid it. But an approach called Theraplay was introduced to us during play therapy at school this year. It is based in strengthening parent-child connections and I need that in spades. In our house, we call it “5 Minutes with Mummy” & it appears it has made all the difference, evidenced in both our consciousnesses and our connection. As an aspiring play therapist, I am heartened, As her mum, I am thrilled.

Her summer inquiry has been kites. She’s been chatting to me about their different shapes (genuinely didn’t know there were different shapes) and how she’s coloured hers in rainbow stripes to honour her granny.

In the afternoon, Kev, Gabby & I gathered in the local park to see all these small people trot in brandishing their kites. Most of them were the regular diamond shape. But not Squidge. She’d gone for the wing “delta” shape, hoping for more flight. I was so thrilled that she hadn’t seen fit to follow the crowd, or a simpler option, as I know I absolutely would have.

It reminded me of how one of her friend’s mums had messaged me from her daughter’s birthday party to say how impressed she was that Immy had asked to be a tiger in a sea full of unicorns when it was time to have her face painted. My girl seems to know what she wants and is resolute. And I am in awe.

I told her so later before her gym lesson, admitting that even now I wasn’t sure of myself or what made me happy and I was so proud that she did know.

She hunched up her little shoulders non-chalantly and said “Meh, I just like to be myself.”

I just grinned at her. Because yes. This isn’t something I understand at. All. And yet, here she is and she knows. I get that familiar surge that Oh my God, I want to be just like this kid. It is only in the last few weeks I have allowed myself to realise that these incredible attributes are not entirely a result of Immy’s nature. My nurture deserves credit too, because I have strived to give them everything I am slowly realising was lacking in my own childhood.

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Kev unexpectedly wasn’t available for bedtime on this same day. Bedtime is his sole domain and he has crafted a whole routine of telling Gabby he’s going to “his” bed so she’ll race him up the stairs to get in her bunk first, of teasing a giggling Immy about an raspberry-themed item before the onslaught of raspberries on her face or tummy begin.

When I told Gabby this wasn’t available, her little face fell. “What about my bed?”

I didn’t say anything, because what could I say? I wasn’t Kev, we all knew my efforts would be lost.

Then Immy pipes up, mimicking Kev’s announcing boom “Oh, well I guess I better go get in my bed!” And Gabby raced up to bed, determined to beat her sister to bed.

I deliberately climbed the stairs slowly behind them, grinning as I heard Immy say (above Gabby’s shrieking giggles!) “I meant raspberry ice-cream, ice cream… why are you laughing?”

I hadn’t asked a thing of my eldest daughter, not even implied. She knew she would not enjoy her turn in this familiar routine when Daddy was absent, but she had taken it upon herself to bring her baby sister unbridled joy anyway. It was the purest, kindest, sweetest, most joyous thing I had ever seen.

“Not just from you, Squidge.” I told her proudly once she climbed into her bunk. “From anyone ever. You made her so happy because you could. I am so proud of you. Thank you for being you.”

She beamed at me. Gabby began to cry from her bottom bunk. Again, without a word or inference from me, Immy climbed down and cuddled in beside her sister, who was immediately soothed, cuddling in and wrapping her arms tight around her beloved big sister. She even gave her half her blanket, so thrilled was she not to be alone.

“Oh Immy, thank you. See how much she loves you!”

Immy kissed her little sister. “I love you Gabby.”

I was about to start speaking about how happy and full my heart felt when my biggest girl turned her head and kissed me too. “I love you Mummy.”

“Oh darlin’, I love you too.”

And because of you, who is nothing but herself, this mummy is winning. Always be like yourself Squidge. You are the best.