When you want me but no longer need me..

Isn't that the line from Nanny McPhee?

I'm getting to the point where my kids want me but don't really need me. Sure they need me to take them to school, fill the fridge, keep the house warm, wash their clothes etc. But there is a growing frequency of when this Nanny McPhee mantra applies.

EG You want me to pick up those clothes off the floor, but you don't really need me to do it as you are really quite capable of doing it yourself.

You want me to put a DVD on but actually you've seen me do it a million times now and could quite easily press the right buttons.

You want a jumper from upstairs because we are going to the park and there's absolutely no reason why you can't go up there and get it yourself..

You can even make yourself a piece of toast, get the milk out of the fridge and the cereal out of the cupboard and put your own bowl in the dishwasher.. you don't really need me to get up out of my warm bed and come downstairs to do it now do you? In fact it is quite astonishing just how much you can do if left to your own devices..

There is a fine line as a mother which you cross somewhere in their fifth or sixth year of life when you really do have to stop doing everything for them and encourage a bit of independence. Both for your sake (to stop you going insane) and for theirs (to teach them that Mummy isn't a doormat). But this moment creeps up on you and, especially if this is your day job, as it is mine, it can sometimes catch you out.

I've always encouraged the girls to be independent, to get dressed by themselves, to brush their own teeth and now to bathe themselves. But I am still shocked sometimes at how much they expect me to do for them. When the nearly eight year old shouted at me this weekend because I hadn't got her something that she was demanding, it stopped me in my tracks. And I found myself telling her, in no uncertain terms, that I was not her personal slave and to flipping well get it herself.

The stunned look on her face was a revelation. And it occurred to me that I do need to encourage them to do more for themselves. Enough is enough. We promptly went upstairs and practised putting sheets on beds and pillow cases on pillows. She is going away on a school trip for two nights this week and we had strict instructions from her teacher that she had to be able to make up her own bed.

She now can.

One more tick for independence.

The time for me to go just got a little bit closer.. rather sad really, but there it is..