Sweet Sixteen

Our daughter, Mia, turned 16 this week.
The celebrations flowed through the evening, her and her friends filling the house with giggling and instagram induced gasps.
And I spent the evening wondering if 16 years seems like forever or no time at all.
" It definitely feels as though she has been around for 16 years,' said Ninesh, "A bit longer actually."
And in lots of ways, he's right. As soon as your children arrive to unbalance your life, it is hard to remember a time when they weren't there crying and laughing and moaning and generally causing mayhem
As a parent your life is definitely divided into 2 parts: BC and AC- before children and after children. And however fulfilled the AC days make you feel, there are days when you just miss the freedom of the BC days.
And one of the strangest things about becoming a parent, is the effect it has on Time. 
The first few years are spent in a state of such complete exhaustion with so many sleepless nights and pre-dawn mornings that it is often hard to believe only a day and not a year,  has passed between waking up and going to bed. But now, looking back over the first 16 years of Mia's life, parts of it seem to have passed so quickly that it is hard to believe they are over.  Where did her years at primary school go?. This time next year she will be in the sixth form and won't have to wear school uniform.  But I'm sure it was only a few weeks ago I was buying her first school skirt and sweatshirt! 
All those nights I spent rocking the tiny bundle to sleep in my arms and now she has to bend down so that I can kiss her goodnight.
I am sure that time doesn't pass in regular intervals, but passes instead in intermittent spurts, like a fan that has been unevenly folded, sometimes with creases so close together that it feels you barely stop to breathe and sometimes with big, smooth gaps where life has no folds at all and memories are vague.
Once, when my brother and sister and I were on holiday with our grandma, Omi, a little boy came into our room.
" Hello," he said, " my name is Robert Lynch. I'm 4 and I was born when I was 3."
And now, all these years later, I understand exactly what he meant!

On the day she was born, Mia didn't sleep at all. 
She lay still next to me, her big, almost- black eyes, drinking in the newness of the world around her. 
And watching her, willing the world to be kind , NInesh and I realised that our lives had  just been shaken to the core. 
No more lie-ins ( or not for years!), no more responsibility-free drunken nights, only responsibility-ful ones. and no chance of ever, for the rest of our lives, putting ourselves first.
And 16 years (that sometimes seem like longer) later, was it worth it?
Of course it was.
The truth is, Mia and Joss make our lives worth living (except when they fight with me about breakfast, fight with Ninesh about chores and fight with each other about nothing). 
And it is impossible to imagine our lives without them.
It's a long time since we've missed our BC life. 
So Happy 16th Birthday Mia. 
We wrapped your presents in flowery paper and dreams.  
I hope they all come true.