This afternoon I walked back into the house and was greeted with a sight that made me take a moment. It seems a fairly typical thing, just 2 scooters stood by the front door. But this is where a pushchair has stood every day for the almost 8 years that we’ve lived in this house.

This morning Henry took the last one we’ve owned to the dump. Yes, Clara hasn’t been in it for weeks as she’s outgrown it really, and yes it was broken anyway so it needed to go. But still, this seems to have been the tipping point in my realisation that our pre-school era is rapidly approaching its end.

Don’t get me wrong leaving the house after lunch today with a shopping bag in hand, keys and phone in my pocket and a scooting child was a lot easier than days gone past when I would have had one in the carrier and one in the pushchair as well as the scooting child, along with a bag or 2, 6 different toys, several snacks and usually my last nerve. But I still had a pang of sadness as I followed the scooting giant baby after walking past the missing pushchair for a second time, things really are about to change in a huge way for our little family.

And I know it’s a change that was always there looming in the distance, but it always felt so far away and now Henry has literally counted down the weeks till we can say- ‘all our children are at school now.’ I’m blotting in from my brain so you’ll have to ask him yourself how many it actually is. But I do know this last little stretch of the summer term will see a lot of ‘lasts’ before a big final ‘first.’ So, I’m feeling a bit mixed about the whole thing.

It’s also almost 8 years ago that I tentatively set foot into my first toddler group. It was up at the children’s centre and I was so nervous and really didn’t know what to expect. I just knew that I really needed to make a few Mum friends to have by my side on the next chapter of our family life. Jenny, one of the Mum’s (incidentally one of the nicest Mum’s I’ve ever met) was the first person to speak to me- turns out she was the first person a lot of us spoke to as like I say she’s a nice person who spotted an anxious first time Mum and decided to strike up a conversation. It worked. Pretty soon I fell into a routine with baby Polly, we went to a different group nearly every day- sometimes 2 in one day. And fairly quickly I had a little group of fellow Mum’s who I’m happy to say are still some of my most important friends now. We’ve raised our little ones together, watched them turn into big ones and popped our several more between us. To put it simply- I found my tribe.

As I say, these groups have been a huge part of our pre-school era and I’m nothing short of devastated that pretty soon I won’t be writing them on the calendar anymore as they’ve been such a staple to our lives. I’ve laughed, cried, given and received plenty of hugs, I’ve gossiped, felt my heart burst with emotions on several occasions, bought home enough crafts to resemble the Art Attack studio and made so many memories. Most importantly I and all the kids have made friends for life.

There are so many other aspects to say goodbye to as this door closes. The little cheeky lunch dates, the coffee catch ups, the trips to a quiet soft play, the play on the deserted beach. Yes, I know I’ll still be able to do these things- but it’ll be different. The structure to the week will shift and these things become a bit more tricky.

But, I know it’s not all sadness. Clara is so excited to start school. Henry and I are looking forward to being able to go on cheeky lunch dates where we can maybe have an uninterrupted conversation. I’ll be able to study more. And of course watching them grow up is the biggest privilege I have in my life. And there will be other exciting milestones, the next year will bring more nativity plays, Polly’s first residential trip, sports days. And yes having them at school for such a chunk of the week does make me appreciate the time when they are home so I guess having them all at school will only reinforce that appreciation. And instead of the cheeky lunch dates there might be more cheeky after school beach/ice cream trips. And the coffee catch ups might just be more me without a child in tow. And the deserted beach plays might have to be earlier in the day on a weekend instead of during school hours. And maybe we’ll just avoid soft play for a while!

So, all in all there’s a lot of different emotions weaving through me at the moment, so apologies if I seem a little off if I’m asked about my littlest baby starting school. I’m happy/sad and sad/happy all at the same time. All I do know for sure is that I’m going to soak up every one of these ‘last’ moments as it really does feel like 5 minutes ago that we bought home the biggest baby in a car seat, plonked her down in the living room and said “shit, what do we do now?”