Edwina Bartholomew: My daughter Molly had her first day of school today. This is how it went

I usually start my mornings in the Sunrise studio. This morning I was at home for a very special reason. Today, was my daughter’s first day at school.

Molly was up at 6.30am, dressed by 6.32am.

As we walked to school, we passed a retired teacher, “Good luck” she said, “I miss those days”.

Another woman at the bus stop smiled as Molly wrestled her giant backpack back onto her little shoulders.

“First day?”, said a tradie working on our neighbour’s house.

“How does he know it’s my first day?”, Molly asked.

“I guess he can just tell,” I smiled back.

The tiny pressed school dress, the white socks pulled up to her knees, the brand-new school shoes on her feet, the plaits down her back with matching navy scrunchies; all a dead giveaway that this walk to school is the first of many small steps that will take her all the way to high school and beyond.

There is a knowing glance when other parents ask, “How is she feeling about her first day?”

It’s more of a question directed at the parents, really. How are you feeling? The answer is a little bit strange.

A memory flashed through my mind as we first left the house this morning.

I was thinking about the very first time we walked out the front door with a little baby in our care.

It was the summer of 2019, Black Summer.

The smoke was still thick in the Sydney air and it was so, so hot.

We had only just returned from hospital a few days before.

It had taken us that long to work out how to put up the pram and trust ourselves outside the confines of our house.

We made it two blocks to the park before realising we had swaddled Molly so tightly that she was practically suffocating from heat stroke.

We have never walked faster back to our front door and didn’t leave for another week.

The cliche is that time flies by so fast but it hasn’t always felt that way.

If there is any silver lining to Covid, it’s that we felt like we had all the time in the world.

Those first few years plodded by day by day, month by month, milestone by milestone in the best possible way.

I look at baby photos now (maybe just a few too many in recent days) and I can’t believe the child standing in front of me is five years old but I am also so lucky to have been there for practically every moment of her life.

Starting work at 3am and getting home by 11am does have some perks.

It’s been joyful and magical and wonderful but bloody hard too. That’s why I felt emotional today but also a little relieved.

A few months ago, an article started doing the rounds on my WhatsApp mum groups.

It was about “matrescence”, a word I hadn’t heard before.

It reads like adolescence, but instead of the dramatic changes that take place for teenagers, it’s the body morphing and hormone shifting that happen when you become a mother.

It rang a gigantic bell I my head.

The article examined the emotional tug-of-war for mums, that push and pull between wanting to be around your kids every minute of the day but then hiding in the loo, scrolling Instagram for two minutes of peace of quiet.

It explained the way our bodies change when we have a baby, how the brain alters, how the oxytocin released around childbirth and skin-to-skin touch pushes us to make our kids the centre of our universe while at the same time we feel ripped away from many of the things that used to make us feel like, well, us.

It perfectly described the constant conflict between the heart-busting love I have for my children and the strain I feel at not being free to do everything I once did, or to even feel on top of work and life’s other commitments.

That’s hard to write because it’s hard to admit, and even harder to share.

It speaks to the lies we tell each other about motherhood being a constant state of bliss and well-organised bento boxes, how we pretend we’re completely fine and coping-and-all-is-good-and-wonderful-all-the-time-and-little-Johnny-is-counting-to-10-and-Sally-is-toilet-training-herself… when really, we’re all in the trenches, getting through each day and holding out for bedtime.

So, today felt like a milestone for Molly and for me.

She could not be more ready for her own adventures.

I get a little bit more time to myself too, a little more headspace so I am not as cranky, a little more time to do what makes me; me away from being a mum.

That baby swaddled tightly in the pram is now a fiercely funny girl who gave me a huge hug this morning and strode confidently into the classroom.

We did it. I did it.

Now, I can breathe as me.

And by school pick up at 3pm, we can be us again.