I miss my Mummy

Sofia’s Por Por (my Mum) has gone home. She left yesterday night after being here with us for 7 weeks, and today is the first day on our own – just the Andersons. Can we cope?

Before my Mum (and Sofia) arrived, I was looking forward to her stay with a little trepidation. I haven’t actually lived with my Mum since I was 17 – and I’m now 30. Back then, things weren’t exactly smooth sailing and recent trips home have proved that we can still have a really good row when left together for too long – so 7 weeks of co-habitation in our little 2 bedroom flat with a screaming baby, sleep-deprived new mother and over-opinionated Por Por, looked like a recipe for disaster.

I’ve never been more happy to be so wrong. I can’t imagine what I would have done without my Mum here! She cooked and cleaned, leaving me to concentrate on eating well and sleeping well – which meant that Sofia was eating and sleeping well and was a very content baby. Then when I had concerns and anxieties, she gently soothed them away with good advice, helpful suggestions and reassurance. None of the harsh real world lecturing that I used to get when I was at school! And she also shared lots of memories from her time as a new mother, the differences she found between me and my brother and how she used to cope with us as babies. Plus memories of the parenting she recieved and all the words of wisdom from my Por Por. All these things that she wouldn’t have been able to tell me before because I would have brushed them off as irrelevant information, because you change when you become a mother and your relationship with your own Mum is cast in a completely different light.

Mum has helped me through so many learning experiences in my first two months as a mother, and I felt so confident with her there to back me up and guide me out of the house and into the big wide world with my new baby. But I still have so much to learn! What am I going to do now? How will I know whether I’m doing the right things? Who will cook all my favourite meals? I need you to come back to London Mum, because for the first time in a long time, I really miss my Mummy.

Sofia and the best Por Por in the world