A letter to my first born…

Dearest boy,

You turned 10 this month (10!! A decade!!) which besides making me feel really old has also made me think about a lot of things. You and I have been on quite the journey together, we have moved house more times than I can count on my hands, you have changed school and we have relocated half way up the country. All the while, you have smiled and taken it all in your stride. 

If I am to be perfectly honest though, I do have a lot to thank you for. I was in year 11 at school when you were born, I finished school at the Christmas holidays, had you in the March and returned when you were tiny to do my exams. Admittedly, I didn’t achieve great results but the point I am making is that I could have used you as an excuse to drop out of school and not return, but I didn’t. I have you to thank for that because when I became your Mum, I knew I wanted more for us and for you. I didn’t want a normal job for a normal wage in a normal house and for us to just plod along. I wanted to be able to encourage you to be better, show you that actually, you can do whatever you want to do. Despite my quite naff GCSE results, I went off to college, took new Maths and English qualifications and studied like mad to get into university. I am so proud that even with a baby/toddler/young child I managed to do 5 years of study so that I could work in a sector I really wanted to. And you can do the same, at the moment you want to be a doctor, and as you are only 10 you tell me about all the things you will buy me with your wages, which we laugh about because when you are older you will realise that if you are buying anyone a sports car it won’t be your Mum.

For 7 years you were an only child, all of the attention and nobody to disagree with. Your life was easy and you had my undivided attention. Then your baby brother arrived, you were so excited to be a big brother and spoke about it constantly right up until his arrival. You are so kind and caring, you couldn’t wait for someone new to love. The thing is, as a baby he was very poorly and he took up so much of our attention, but you, ever the good boy, never complained. It didn’t end there though because as your brother got older we noticed his development was behind and he was diagnosed with autism last year. You went from an only child without a care in the world, to a big brother and then quickly to a young carer. Your whole world has changed.

I am sorry that so much of my attention is taken up looking after your brother, and I am sorry that I always ask you to wait a minute. I feel like I spend all the time making you wait while I care for your brother. You never complain and always help as much as you can. But, the thing is, a 10 year old boy shouldn’t have to have all these worries and be dragged along to all the medical appointments and things, and that is the downfall of having a younger sibling with additional needs. 

Thank you for being patient, caring and loving as you always are. You always put the feelings of others before your own and always try to make people laugh and smile, you make me smile every day, you are an amazing person and I am proud of you every minute of every day. Just the other day me and you were both crying with laughter to the point where we were struggling to breathe, discovering the face swap feature on snapchat and then laughing so much it done absolutely nothing for our new strange faces. I can’t remember the last time I laughed like that, I don’t know if I have the mentality of a 10 year old or if you are quite mature but either way we are clearly cut from the same cloth and have the same humour. I wish I had saved all of the pictures we took, but I do have this little gem of you as an evil bunny, scary but hilarious.

Thank you for loving me all of the time, which sounds like a strange thing to say but even when I am grumpy and boring (which is most of the time), you always enjoy my company. And besides anything else, you are practically a mini version of me anyway and occasionally, we both enjoy sitting and having a good old moan, it is good for the soul. At least that is what I tell myself, your Dad doesn’t buy it though and says I moan too much, and then I moan about him moaning about my moaning which proves his point, and makes me feel better. Win, win!

Thank you for being happy, smiley you, even when there isn’t that much at all to smile about. We do have a bit of a hectic and stressful life, but we are all in it together and whilst we all annoy each other, that is exactly how we like it. If we didn’t mess around and act like idiots we would probably be miserable all the time, and that is boring.

So, even though I have gone off topic in bits and waffled on (as I am good at) really this is just a long winded high five to you for being so awesome, and a pat on the back for me for making you so awesome!

Love you more than you will ever know,

Mum xo