Did you know Max was named after the character in the Sendak book? It’s actually completely true.
When Max was a tiny boy, we lived on the top floor of a huge house in Hawthorn. The laundry was downstairs and every day we’d make the trip out to the garden, past the roses and the ferns to the outbuildings that housed the washing machine and random junk owned by our elderly landlord.
I’d pile the wet washing into the basket and put a new load on. Max would ramble about the garden like a gentle-yet-wild thing, earnestly asking if there were dinosaurs hiding in the bushes, plucking bugs off the leaves and letting them crawl across his hand. Sometimes he’d snap a thorn from a rose-bush and try to stick it to his forehead, ‘like a triceratops’. Other times he’d sit in the sandpit, looking up at the huge tree above him picking the spiky, fallen leaves from the sand and chatting quietly to himself as I pegged the washing on the line.
Aw man. These were special days. Rin was at school and Ari wasn’t even born yet. It was just the two of us. We’d chat and play the days away. We drew a lot. We read heaps of books. We made things. Volcanoes and dinosaurs and Lego. I cooked things. He ate the things. And we’d wait for everyone else to come home much later in the day.
I can scarcely believe that this cute boy is leaving home next Tuesday. He’s moving into a new ‘family share house’. The years have somehow zipped by and we’re talking about the best way to pack up his things, fancy up his new room, get along with his new family housemates and relocate his pet turtle.
We’ve been talking a lot about when and how we’ll get to see each other now. Sob. And about how I’ll get to catch up with all his friends too. They’ve been constant fixtures in our home and I’m guessing they might move on with him? Perhaps?! Of course.
I came up with a few stay-in-touch/send-off ideas:
a) a Goodbye Fitzroy party in our building for friends and family of our whole gang, once we’ve moved also moved and the building is empty (we are moving as well in a month or two!)
b) regular catch up drinks with the family share house gang and all of our friends
c) visits anytime, day or night, especially if in need of food
d) weekly-or-thereabouts family feasts with extra bodies welcome
We’re certainly navigating some huge transitions at the moment at my place. Everyone is moving, starting afresh, saying goodbye, saying hello, realising how much we mean to each other. Luckily there are still plenty of chats, even if there are less bugs, spikes and dinosaur horns. Weirdly, it’s still Max and I chatting alone because Ari is the one at school (and Rin is the absent one.) So, some things are still a bit the same, right? Yes.
Still. It really does feel like he’s going in and out of weeks, almost over a year, if you know what I mean…
Me thinks a cross-stitch “Where the Wild Things Are” may need to be delivered to this new abode.
Nothing like a little touch of ‘nanna’ to remind young ones to stay in touch with loved ones.
Perhaps above their tv or phone 😉
<3
Pia
When those babies are new leaving home just seems so impossibly far away, but I can feel the time of joyous hellos and aching goodbyes marching closer to my door. Love how you are trying to build new traditions. Xx
so much love for this post Pip (and an accompanying lump in my throat.)
(If you haven’t seen this book before, Someday, have a peek here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xuxcNcteTY it’s not as good as holding the book in your hands and reading it in your own voice but it’s second best.)
It’s hard. For some really hard. I have seen a couple of people thrown into real depression over this, some bloggers included for whom their sadness was palpable and visible and long lasting. Some people of course think its just great and move right along, changing up the bedroom into a sewing space within days, but many struggle with the loss of the role they have had for so long, as well as the actual child themselves.
I found it hard but less so than I thought because my dear daughter contacted me almost daily through Skype which was rather lovely of her. She has been back for a year or so and will be gone again in a couple of months, possibly for always. I am dreading it all over again, but I did cope before and will do this time. I did cry and I was very sad for a while. Just me and the one cat now; there used to be two but one went to wherever they go when they are off the mortal plane. I find the build up very difficult, the goodbye terrible and then the living of it, acceptable. Probably best that way around though. Good luck that you will find it okay, that is after all what we what we want for our children, happy independence but it requires a determination to be okay ourselves ( for me anyway).
It just doesn’t barely factor in many mothers of younger children thoughts , but it does come and it is a form of bereavement and totally life changing. People adapt yes and do mostly find happy again, but for some it is a defining point from which they don’t recover and it isn’t taken seriously. ‘Empty nest syndrome’ is kind of empty as a description and kind of mocking too.
Oh, gorgeous post Pip! I imagine you will miss your Max heaps. But hopefully he’ll keep popping in 😉 our small ones are still very little so I’m not in that place yet. We are in a caravan for a few weeks (or months?!) while we finalise buying a property, and then move onto it. The laundry here is quite a walk from the caravan and it can be quite a big deal on a busy day to wander down to the laundry with the girls. Little Ivy (miss 2) likes to dawdle, pick clover, draw with rocks, and splash in puddles on the way. Some days I love watching her explore, even when it takes us 10 or 15 minutes to get to the laundry! Other days when the basket is feeling heavy, and there’s lots to get done, I get a bit fed up. I love your reminiscing about walking to the laundry with little Max, and on the days when I’m feeling impatient, I’ll think of your story and smile 🙂 Fleur xx
I am still a few years off farewelling my first born but I’m going to try & remember some of your catch-up/stay in touch ideas because they thought of not seeing my babes everyday is quite hard to think about…sob for you & sob for future me x
Oh this is so beautiful, Pip! It made me miss my parents and my kids all at once and imagine how that will be when my girls take those big, awesome steps out on their own. I may have been a bit teary for a moment there *sniff*. xx
oh I really get it Pip… lots of old photo album page flipping times with tissues by the ready yes? Why are they always ready for the ‘next stage’ well before we are?
I like your keep in touch plan… the front door, the pantry door and our hearts are always open for our babes aren’t they x 🙂
Aw, Pip this is bringing tears to my eyes, even though it will be a decade before my son leaves home. My Max, 8 is also named after the book. He really is a wild ‘bush’ boy.
My 8 year son tells me that he and his married person will live with us. I’ve explained that she might not like that and that people grow up and have their own places. How he scoffs at me….as if his wife wouldn’t want to live with us 🙂 fine with me darling!!
I just started crying when I read this. Kids are just amazing things to have aren’t they? I have a five year old and an eight month old and I felt like I saw the future when I read your post Pip. Its all very happy/sad. Time just flies by. I look at my very tall five year old Elsie everyday and ask her when she grew. Seriously! I don’t know when she became all arms and legs! It happened in the blink of an eye.
What a beautiful post. I know exactly how you feel.
Wow Pip,
You had me welling up with this blog..
When I was a kid oh so many many many moons ago I had five really favourite books. They all meant equally the same to me. Blinky Bill (The big red hard cover book that everyone seemed to have) Corduroy, the story of a toy bear bought by a little girl, The Story about Ping, Derek The Tortoise and Where the Wild Things Are. The Wild Things fascinated me and still do, the way the drawings increase in size as the story climax’s and recedes as Max returns. You brought those memories back. You brought back the memories of my parents reading to me several lifetimes ago. Of the time I read to my children and told them stories.
Know watching my kids become adults I can relate to what you are experiencing as well. I’ve read this blog just as my oldest who is almost twenty has raced into the house at 11pm. She left this morning at 7.30 raced off to Uni for her final exam for the semester called me to pick her up, changed her shoes and jacket in the car and raced into her workplace which was around midday. Finished her shift she’s jumped into the shower and is racing off to a club for a uni party. She will probably ring me around 3am to pick her up. I remember her first breath. Geez wasn’t it yesterday?
Thanks Pip for a lovely expression of your thoughts and again for sharing them with us.
Ciao for now.
What a beautiful picture you paint Pip. I’m already dreading the day my little boys leave home! It sounds like you have a good plan in place though! X
Oh Pip, this is a really lovely, heartfelt post. So many beautiful images you’ve described xxx
What a huge transition for you all. I can’t even imagine!
My second son H who just turned 7 asked me the other day if he had to get married because he didn’t want to leave home! He is worried about it already. I told him of course you don’t have to get married, you can stay as long as you like but you may even want to find your own place one day. He was aghast! As if he’ll leave us! I can imagine how mixed you must be feeling too. x
This made me think about the days of the future when my girls will leave home. You made me cry pip. Not cool. !!!!
Awww!
Do you know, back in the days of the shop on Bridge Rd before the first Mikes shop, I remember Max and Ari as little kids?! I remember them in there one day, then seeing Cam and the kids at Coles the next day and thinking, “oh, there’s the man from the shop and the two kids.”
Gosh that feels like a lifetime ago!
Wishing you lots of love during this funny transition-y time xx
hasn’t the time just gone WHOOSHING by?! I can’t even believe it! x