Growing up together...

It's been a tough two weeks on mother and daughter. Our mite had just finished school at the end of June, only to be tossed straight into hospital for ear surgery. Then, nary a week later, thanks to her two working mums, the poor kid was sent to day camp.

As the days went by, mothers and daughter became increasingly unhappy with the situation, with the mite begging, nay, even clinging to our legs, dragging on the floor, as we walked towards the exit, to stay home with us.

And so the days of doubt started: every party around the breakfast table dreaded that inevitable move towards the upstairs for bath and clothes and then of course bike or car to ... camp. It started to give me headaches. I couldn't sleep for worry; the munchkin started to get black circles under her eyes. I was contemplating telling all my customers to go stuff themselves for two months. Then I would routinely run into other mothers with a guilt-ridden conscience on playdates, who were having an equally bad time of it. We started to question ourselves. We started to think of ourselves as those bad mommies. I had nightmares about emotional scarring and being told 14 years from now, during a row, that it was all my fault for sending her to day camp when she was 3.5.

And then today came: last day at music camp. A performance. A smiling star of the show, entertaining a crowd of a 100 or so parents, together with her old and new friends. And then the discovery that the camp actually keeps a photo blog. And my mini WonderWoman actually seemed to be having fun. In fact, I was dumbfounded by the discovery. As I tried to put two and two together, I asked myself whence this sudden onset of separation anxiety? Whence the Oscar-meriting performances of abandoned child of the year?

Regardless, it has been a draining two weeks. And because we are true masochists, we are subjecting ourselves to another week of this medicine. Same people who organised the last week's camp, which the munchkin seems to have enjoyed more than the first week. The theme: A voyage of discovery. And likewise one for mothers and daughter, who discovered over the last two weeks that they can be quite brave when they need to. But who still feel the need to be joined at the hip... until my last, dying breath...