Enjoy this moment

So here it is – the final instalment of my Just One Thing series. And who better to round things up than the brilliant Joanna, aka Tatterhood. Joanna writes poems about her parenting journey, mostly while her little boy sleeps, and has now published them as a collection ‘Swimming Underwater’. Her poetry always seems to speak exactly to the often wonderful yet heart wrenching daily experience of raising children. She kindly offered to share her poem ‘Morning Quiet’ for Just One Thing – and the one thing she’d like new parents to know? ‘Just enjoy this chapter‘

“I have found it hard to pinpoint #justonething I would say to new parents. There are just so many things in so many moments and everyone is so different, I’m not sure I could try to advise or even if I really feel qualified to do so to be honest – I very much make it up as I go and hope for the best! But I can think of something I might go back and whisper in my own ear from time to time. I think that might be to say to ‘just enjoy this chapter’. I think there is often humour or something to be gained in and from everything if you leave it long enough, and often in the most challenging times I think. I can’t believe how quickly all these little moments pass and suddenly you have a nearly three year old. The poem ‘Morning Quiet’ holds as true for me today as it did when I wrote it. It reminds me that the things you worry about today are gone in an instant, and then another thing may come along to take it’s place that too will then pass and before long a chapter will end and a book will draw to a close. I want to make sure I enjoy all the chapters that make up this book. Much love x”