The Last Time

This Journal entry is available in two ways: you can read it below, or press play to hear me sharing it in my own voice.

Adaline starts school in September. I’ve done this twice before, so it’s not like I don’t know what’s coming. I know she’ll be absolutely fine. In fact, she’ll probably thrive. She’s excited, she’s ready, and I couldn’t be prouder of the little girl she’s becoming. But she’s my baby. And over the last few days it’s suddenly hit me that she isn’t a baby anymore. She isn’t even really a toddler. Somewhere along the way she became a little girl, and I don’t remember when that happened.

I don’t actually think it’s school that’s making me emotional. I think it’s what school represents. Everything that’s been my normal for the last eight years is changing again. The days we’ve spent together, the little routines we’ve fallen into, the freedom to spend a Thursday morning at the park or wander around the garden centre looking at the fish because we’ve got nowhere else to be. Those ordinary little moments are coming to an end, and I don’t think I realised how much I’d miss them until now.

It’s made me think about something I’ve never really thought about before. The last times.

We celebrate all the firsts, don’t we? First smile. First laugh. First steps. First birthday. First day at school. We take photos, we tell everyone, we write them down in baby books because we know they’re milestones. But nobody ever talks about the lasts.

Nobody tells you when it’s the last time they’ll crawl across the living room. Nobody tells you when it’s the last time they’ll ask to be carried because their legs are tired. Nobody tells you when it’s the last time they’ll climb into your bed in the middle of the night because they’ve had a bad dream. You don’t get a warning. You don’t get chance to soak it all in. One day it just… doesn’t happen anymore.

I already catch myself doing it now. Every time I pick Paisley up, I wonder whether this might be the last time. Every time Morgan climbs into my bed in the middle of the night, I secretly wonder how many more times she’ll do it before she decides she’s too old. Even when Adaline has one of those spectacular toddler tantrums that tests every ounce of patience I have, I find myself thinking that one day she’ll have her last one, and neither of us will know that’s what it is.

It’s even the silly little things. The words they say wrong. One day they’ll suddenly say them properly and I won’t even notice that’s the last time I hear their funny little version. The way they run. The way they reach for my hand without thinking. The way they ask me to watch absolutely everything they do. One day all of those things will quietly disappear, replaced by the next stage of growing up.

I’ve found myself scrolling back through old photos this week, wondering when the last time was that Adaline crawled. I spent months encouraging her to crawl. Clapping every tiny movement like she’d won an Olympic medal. Yet one ordinary day she crawled for the very last time, and I couldn’t tell you when that was. How did I miss something that once felt so huge?

I keep coming back to the same question. If I’d known it was the last time, would I have done anything differently? Would I have taken another photo? Would I have watched for a little longer? Would I have put my phone down and been just that little bit more present?

The truth is, probably not. Because life doesn’t tell us it’s the last time. Life is happening while we’re making dinner, folding washing, rushing out of the door for the school run or trying to answer the hundredth question of the day. The ordinary moments don’t feel extraordinary while we’re living them.

Maybe that’s why this has hit me so hard. The firsts are exciting because we’re waiting for them. The lasts are invisible because we don’t know they’re coming.

So I don’t think this is really about Adaline starting school anymore. I think it’s about noticing. About saying yes to one more cuddle. Picking them up even though they’re getting heavier. Listening to the story that takes ten minutes longer than it needs to because they’re so desperate to tell you every little detail.

Not because I know it’s the last time.

But because one day it will be.

And by then, it’ll already be a memory.

If this resonated, these might be the next pieces to read (tissues at the ready!):

The Conversation That Broke My Heart (Again) – a heartfelt journal about a conversation in the playground.

I am not a midwife. I am a teacher – another self reflection from me!

I’m Danielle, the founder of The Mama Spring and mum to three girls.

A former early years teacher, I now support women through pregnancy, birth and early motherhood with honest education, hypnobirthing, and calm baby classes in Grimsby.