• My 4-year-old daughter will start primary school in September. She's excited, but I'm dreading it.
• It seems like moments ago that I brought home a baby from hospital, now she's growing up so fast.
• I feel like this is the beginning of the rest of her life and I'm not ready for the change.

'I will need a laptop when I start school,' my 4-year-old daughter confidently informed me.

She is due to start school in September and will be going to the lovely, tiny village school that is minutes away from our house in the UK.

I knew she'd need a pencil case and school shoes, but I really wasn't expecting her to need a laptop.

When I tried to reason with her, and point out it was unlikely the school would ask 4-year-olds to have their own computer, she answered, 'It's for my homework.'

That was that. She'd heard so much about 'big' school from older relatives, that she was convinced she knew what she was getting herself in to, despite me trying to tell her I thought it was unlikely the youngest classes were given homework.

Looking at her face, full of excitement, with messy hair and remnants of nursery school detritus on it, my heart broke slightly as I imagined what the next few weeks, months, and years would look like.

Things are changing

While my daughter sees school as her biggest adventure so far, I see it as the start of the rest of her life. And with it comes the inevitable highs and lows of growing up.

Along the way she's going to experience the joy of close friendships, the pain of friendship break-ups, the excitement of a school trip and, yes, the slog of homework.

After primary school, there'll be secondary school, maybe university, and a career to follow.

There'll be Sunday evening battles over getting bags ready for the school week, carefully planned camps to tide over the long summer break, and playdates with people who, I hope, will become some of our closest friends but who we haven't even met yet.

She is ready, I'm not

She still feels so small, but is also so determined to grow up in a hurry. She can't wait to be at school and keeps gleefully reminding her younger brother that she won't be at nursery school with him this year.

She says, "I am going to school and you are not, because you are only a baby."

Her indignant younger brother, replies, "Not a baby."

She is ready to leave him behind and move on, to a place where she's going to be the smallest fish in a large pond.

My heart is aching

I don't know when the novelty and excitement will wear off, but when it does I can't think of a way to sugarcoat the pill that this is her life for years to come.

But I also know that along the way I will have the privilege to witness her grow into a wonderful human being- shaped by everything life throws at her, beginning in the next few weeks and continuing for years.

Imagining my tiny girl in a uniform slightly too big for her, holding my hand nervously in the playground on her first day, my heart contracts.

I know that she is more than ready for this step, and as a parent, I have to let her fly and just be there to catch her when or if she falls. However, I will not be, under any circumstances, buying her a laptop.

• Katherine Schwarzenegger says she hired a coach to prepare for her role as a stepmom to Chris Pratt's son.
• "It's a confusing thing to navigate where you fit in," Schwarzenegger said of the stepparent dynamic.
• Pratt added that stepparents often "don't end up getting the credit" they deserve.

Before Katherine Schwarzenegger married Chris Pratt, she hired a pro to help her prepare to become his son's stepmom.

During a joint appearance with Pratt on Tuesday's episode of the "Parenting & You with Dr. Shefali" podcast, Schwarzenegger spoke about family life and what it was like navigating a blended household.

Schwarzenegger married the "Jurassic World" actor in 2019 and has two daughters and a son with him. Pratt also shares a son, Jack, 12, with his ex-wife, Anna Faris.

"Number one thing I say is get a stepparenting therapist or stepparenting coach, because I got that right when we got engaged, and it's been incredibly helpful for me and also just understanding my role as a stepparent," Schwarzenegger told podcast host and clinical psychologist Shefali Tsabary.

The eldest daughter of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver added that her coach was "essential" in helping her learn how to communicate with her stepchild and think of herself as a stepparent.

"Because stepparenting, like parenting, has no handbook. Because I have the benefit of being in both roles, stepparenting is extra confusing because you aren't a parent, you're not a nanny, you're not an assistant. You have responsibilities in all of those areas, but you're not either of them. It's a confusing thing to navigate where you fit in," Schwarzenegger said.

She also said that every family has a different dynamic, since different people might have different levels of involvement in their stepchild's life.

"And when it comes to ego, that definitely pops up for me, for sure, and I always go back to understanding that this isn't about me, it's about the child," she said.

But thankfully, they — Schwarzenegger, Pratt, Faris, and Faris' husband Michael Barrett — "co-parent all very well, which is a huge blessing," she said.

Pratt, who was also a podcast guest, added that stepparenting reminds him of motion-capture acting, where actors wear specialized suits with sensors to animate digital characters, because stepparents "don't end up getting the credit" they deserve.

"If a parent is in there doing the hard work of creating structure for a child and holding children accountable — and it's not a biological child — it can feel thankless. But it's a really, really important job," Pratt said.

Schwarzenegger isn't the only Hollywood celebrity who has spoken up about being a stepparent or blending their families.

In March, Kate Hudson — who has three kids with three dads — said there are upsides to having big, blended families.

"It's like they have so much family. They've got multiple grandmas, multiple grandpas, multiple dads, and moms," Hudson said.

On a "Goop" podcast episode in April, Gwyneth Paltrow said that it was tough navigating the stepparent dynamic as it often felt "full of minefields."

"If I look back at my mistakes as a stepmother, I should have just treated them both like my kids way faster," Paltrow said.

Paltrow has two kids with her ex-husband Chris Martin, whom she divorced in 2016. In 2018, she married Brad Falchuk, who has two kids from his previous marriage.

Parenting experts previously told Business Insider about the common mistakes that stepparents make when trying to connect with their stepkids.

One mistake is trying to replace the stepchildren's biological parents.

"The stepparent isn't the biological parent, and it is OK to acknowledge that," Sarah Epstein, a licensed marriage and family therapist, told BI. "In fact, don't try to compete. Instead, speak directly to the child about their parent and encourage the relationship between the child and parent."

Representatives for Schwarzenegger and Pratt did not immediately respond to requests for comment sent by BI outside regular hours.

• I always pictured a two-parent household for my daughter.
• But a year after becoming a single mom, I realized it was the best thing that could've happened.
• I get to make parenting decisions by myself and can focus all my energy on my daughter.

I never pictured myself as a single mom. As a little girl, I knew I wanted to be a mother more than anything, but I also knew I never wanted to bring a child into a situation similar to my own. Coming from a single-parent household and having had a traumatic childhood, it was more important to me than anything that I give my children a better start in life than my own.

So, I waited. I waited so long that I'd even started coming to terms with never becoming a mother. And when I had my daughter at 36, I'd never been happier in my life. But despite my best efforts, I became a single mother after leaving my partner when she was just six months old. Our relationship was unhealthy, and we do not co-parent together.

I'll be the first to admit the circumstances weren't easy. I'd planned to stay home and work as a freelance writer to supplement our income. That was no longer an option financially. I had new trauma to process and a relationship to mourn, with no time to do it. Like many other single moms, I didn't exactly have an abundance of downtime. And, also like many parents in the US these days, I had no village nearby to help. I was staring down my worst fear: raising my daughter in a childhood that looked like mine.

But looking back nearly a year after becoming a single mother, I see it as the best thing that could have happened.

I can parent exactly how I want to

I often hear other moms vent about how their partners approach certain parenting situations completely differently from how they would. Maybe one parent leans more toward gentle parenting while the other prefers another style. Perhaps they have different timelines in mind for weaning, or different priorities.

As a single parent, I don't have to worry about these conflicts. There are no unexpected fights because of how I respond at any moment, or how my co-parent does. I can simply respond to normal situations like tantrums (which my toddler just started having this month) without the added stress of managing my partner's emotions, too. At the end of the day, I can simply do what I feel is best for my child without the added drama.

I don't have to split myself between my child and a partner

There have been many nights where I've plopped on the couch after getting my toddler down for the night, exhausted both mentally and physically, with barely enough energy to wash my face, start the dishwasher, and make it to bed. One thought that always creeps in is, "How on Earth could I manage the needs of a relationship on top of all this?"

I've always loved love, relationships, and all that comes with those things. But even the best relationships require work. While having a partner to help with tasks like putting my toddler to bed and loading the dishwasher would be nice, I also like being able to do things my way, and the energy I expend doing those things is not more than the energy it takes to keep up a healthy relationship. Right now, as a new parent, I just don't feel I have that energy.

While I always dreamed of a two-parent household for my family, I also find gratitude in the fact that I haven't had to split myself between my child and my relationship — especially an unhealthy one. I haven't had to struggle to muster more of myself to give because there's no competition: I can simply give all of myself to my daughter.

I've been able to soak up every moment of my daughter's childhood

Despite a rather rough year, I live in immense gratitude. I've spent nearly every moment with my daughter. I don't mean just physically, either. I've been able to be mentally and emotionally present for every single moment, every single milestone, and every single stage of development.

How lucky am I that I've been able to soak up every moment of my child's life so far? It may not have been the version of motherhood I imagined, but it's one for which I am extremely grateful.