Bundles for thought

I just got off the phone to my Aunty who is about to drop her new bundle of joy any minute now.
She is a great person who I count among my closest friends, and she is one person who I can always rely on for some sound whinge/listening time :)

After I hung the phone up, I felt this surge of excitement come over me. "I'm going to have another cousin" I thought joyously to myself. But then a realisation hit me, you see, my Aunty is having her second child who will be 7 months younger than my 3rd child. Now this means one of two things. 1) I am a VERY young mother in todays world 2) My family has some serious generational issues. Well, these two points are both true.

I had my first child (Edan) when I was 2 months shy of turning 20. My second came a day before my 21st and the third came 3 months after my 22nd birthday. My Aunty was 29 when she had her first child.

I am often judged by how young I am to have so many kids and to be honest, in society today, my Aunty is classed as a young mum too.

As far as the family go, my mum was not only the eldest child but she started her family at 18. This meant that we were being born while 2 of her siblings were still in primary school. I have never thought that this was unusual until I found myself at play group today nursing my cousin who is the same age as my daughter! Everyone assumes that I am his Aunty!

I love the fact that I have the opportunity to know my Auntys the way I do, most people see thiers as old ladies who are gross and smell like mayonnaise.
I have the opportunity to journey with them as they go through the same struggles and joys I go through everyday as a mother. To be real, I would not have much support as a mum without them as most (well, all bar 1) of my friends are either still single or are married without kids.

I do not have any regrets about being young and being a mother. Sometimes I think the world has gone mad with all these 40-45 year olds having thier first children. When did society change so much that someone like me, who has beared children during the biologically right time in life, has become the minority. I even had a doctor tell me that I was too young to be having kids. WHAT??

Who knows, maybe by the time my siblings are married and having kids mine will be having thiers! haha, don't think so! BUT I'm sure they'll definately get stuck with baby sitting, just as I baby sit my cousins :)