Well Xmas is on its way and I’m still pinching myself every time I look at my little girl. I don’t think its properly sunk in that she’s mine forever, it feels like I’m in such a wonderful and sweet dream I’m so scared of waking up and losing it all. There’s days when I could just hold her in my arms and not move an inch, just to feel her cuddled up to me with her head on my shoulder as I cradle her in my arms.
Little Millie is two months and three days old today; she’s a big girl now! She tries to sit herself up and holds her head so well. She smiles when you make silly noises and it melts my heart to see her little nose crinkle up and those adorable little gums on show as her lips curl with glee.
She’s becoming so cute and chubby too, her little knees and wrists have dimples and she stretches out her hands to hold her bottle, when she finishes her milk she lets out the sweetest little sigh and flutters her eyes as she tries to stay awake.
All who have visited when Millie was first-born have now came back two or three times to catch up on how she’s doing. It’s so nice to see everybody as I’ve not been getting out much lately because Millie had a cold and the weather has been pretty nasty, but come the spring there’ll be no stopping us.
I’ve now passed six exams for my interior design course all at A grade so I’m very pleased and keen to knuckle down for the final half of my papers.
Seeing teenage girls sitting on walls and outside shops whilst I’m out shopping is a blinding reminder of how different my life has now become. Doing Page 3 since I was eighteen meant although for work I may have needed the fake tan, long nails and enhanced chest, but I’ve never had the cockiness or bad attitude to go with it. Modelling was just a job, you dress as you’re required to and show the emotion they wish you to show, but then you put your normal clothes back on and go back to your life, you don’t actually live like that. You’re not that person in real life. That’s when people become deluded. I don’t walk down the street looking like I’ve fell off of the front page of a glossy magazine, I’m human I look and dress like everybody else. I know there’s people who won’t like me, men who won’t find me attractive and mirrors that I don’t want to look into, but that’s life.
Since becoming a mother it’s changed my approach as to how I’d like people to see me. I don’t want to be a young blonde airhead. I want to use my brains for the good of our future. I don’t know what I want out of life at twenty. I don’t know where I’ll see myself in a year or ten years down the line. But I know no matter what I will work my hardest from now until forever to provide for my family. I have a determination I never thought possible, a need to succeed and a passion for life and the long-term future. Our lives are on a beautiful horizon and I’ll carry her in my arms into the sunset with me.
One thing that used to upset me was when people would tell me I was beautiful. They’d compliment my hair and nails and tan and eyes, but none of that was mine. I would bleach my hair and add extensions, I wore coloured contact lenses to make my eyes more intense and had long acrylic nails extensions and used sun beds all the time. It wasn’t me they were complimenting it was my image. I was scared to show everybody who I really was, and dreaded people seeing the natural me. If I was to walk into a room all glammed up to the nines I’d love for heads to turn. Now I’ve come to realise that I don’t need a room full of people to accept me. I enjoyed modeling, it was liberating and exciting but I hate the bravado that comes with it. Becoming a mother has taught me how to be happy with who I am and not hide behind a mask of make-up or try to change the features and attributes that make me an individual.
Millie’s First Christmas
I think the day my daughter asks to dye her hair or start wearing skirts and high heels my heart will break. It would kill me to know she felt the need to change her appearance to suit others. That’s why I need to change how she will one day see me. I don’t ever want her to be ashamed of me. I so badly want to bake her cakes, help her with her homework and go for long walks when it snows. I don’t want to be worrying about hair extensions fluffing up if it gets too humid, or not being able to walk across grass in stilettos, or worrying about fake tan streaking in the rain. I want to win three legged races wearing trainers with her on sports day, jump into the sandpit together and get sand in my hair and eat worms in the garden and dig holes in the mud with just my hands. I want to experience the fun and beauty of life without all of my previous hang-ups about myself.
I know that I’ll always be me inside regardless of how I look. I’d like to stay natural so far as hair, nails and tanning is concerned, and should I continue to model then so be it, but if and how I feel comfortable to, and not try and be somebody that I’m not or to look like a peroxide blow up clone of Barbie.
I want a nice house, a wonderful husband, and hundreds of adorable children who all speak politely and do their homework. I want to cook glorious dinners from scratch everyday and sit down to the table with my family and ask how their day went. I want a career that I love, benefiting a cause I am passionate about, and to help others who have walked the same path as me.
I don’t want to live in a scummy old bedsit covered in graffiti and broken glass, living on benefits with a boyfriend that cheats on me, or drinks and smokes himself unconscious. I don’t want my children on the street swearing and getting ASBO’s, or to live off of microwave meals and get kicked out of all the schools in the county. I don’t want to be a young single mum with no aspirations; I want to be proud to be a lone parent, to make no apologies for the life I have, and for my daughter to be proud to call me her Mummy.
And if I can achieve that one step at a time, then it will be my goal from this day forth. My baby girl means the world to me and someday she will have the life that I have always wanted for her.
Watch this space, it’s a sign of things to come. xXx
