Not drowning, waving!

I heard a lovely comment today that to compare yourself to others is a sin, when you compare yourself to others you give away your life and its very meaning.
I had to be mindful of that when sitting at a cafe with my children and watching a mothers group meet for coffee this afternoon. They all had their prams and their chitchat and I felt somewhat isolated from their experience. As I looked closely at them I realised that most were older than me with their first child, I was sitting with a 10 year old and a 5 year old. I chose to have my children young but this is not the norm in todays world, so I have never really fitted in this area of my life in terms of ages and stages. I felt a slight yearning for the shared experience, the tribal cords that bind women and child, to not feel on the outside for a brief moment.
I wondered what it would be like now if I was to have my first child and I couldn't imagine it, who I am is made up of the last 11 years of experience of pregnancy and child raising and I like who I have become because of these times.
When I bundled my children into the car to drive home, I said to them," A successful afternoon of doing our errands, having afternoon tea and now home to cook a roast for dinner" and the Piscean 5 year old exclaimed: "I love my world" And I said, "I love you in my world!"
There is no perfect time to have start a family but as my grandmother once said to me, "There are two things in life you will never regret doing- one is having a baby and the other is learning to swim."