Friday, February 27

babies grow up

I've been thinking a lot the past few days about how incredibly fast kids grow up. It never felt that way when I was a kid, but now that I'm a mother I have a whole new perspective. Some of you out there are probably thinking "your little girl is only 1 year old." But I'm sure that there are a few of you who hopefully will identify with my feelings. Over the past 15 months my little 6 pound baby has turned in to a chattering, running 24 pound little girl. I have heard people say "they don't stay babies long." And even though in the first few months when you are getting no sleep it might feel like an eternity, it really is such a brief amount of time in a lifespan. I told myself last night as I went in to check on Lily and pray for her before I went to bed, "make sure to enjoy and live in the moment of every single day with Lily." These wonderful days of toddlerhood will be gone before I know it.

Along these same lines, my thoughts have drifted to thinking about how old I would like for Lily to be before I have another child. I'm thinking between 2.5 and 3.5 so that means trying to get pregnant could potentially start as soon as this summer. What a weird thought! I'm one of those people who LOVED being pregnant. I had a very smooth good pregnancy with Lily (besides the awful PUPPP rash at the end). The beautiful miracle of birth that God chose to bless women with is so incredibly amazing. Getting to feel your child moving around inside of you definitely rates VERY high on the list of miraculous things in this world. And then to top it off, you get to experience the birth of your child. Thankfully I had a good birth experience too and didn't have to feel any pain once I got my epidural! I loved the fact that I had a big mirror at the end of the bed so I could see her coming out. It was just so incredibly wonderful having her come out and them instantly laying her up on my chest for the first time. I go back to that very moment so many times. I'm sure I have blogged about it before and maybe several times! But I will never in my lifetime forget how I felt in that moment. So needless to say, I'm excited about being able to experience that again! But it dawned on me that if we were to only have 2 kids, that the next time I'm pregnant could be the last (unless we have 3). That made me really sad!

Well... after all that mushy gushy stuff I would like to also remind those of you out there who haven't had kids that it is HARD work! There were many times in the first few months of Lily's life that I just cried and cried. Sleepless nights and not knowing sometimes what was wrong with her was very very hard. But motherhood is the most wonderfully rewarding hard work there ever was!

To all you other young moms out there: remember today to enjoy the time you have with your babies and toddlers because before we know it, they'll have grown up.

I follow a lot of mom blogs and wanted to post a segment that I read last night from 5 Minutes for Parenting:

"I'm always happy to hold babies - especially dark haired babies with round cheeks and thoughtful eyes, babies that remind me of my own children who now bound around the house, children who kiss me quickly goodbye before dashing off to school, children who once were black-haired babies sleeping, soft little animals in my arms. I've often imagined being able to bottle one day a year with my kids, just one nice, everyday sort of day and then someday, when I'm old, I could take down a bottle and step back - just for a few minutes - into my oldest child's golden haired preschool years, my son's constant toddler chatter around the house, my Baby an actual baby sleeping in my arms. Thank God we can't, though, because the idea is bittersweet enough to just break my heart.

Children grow up. One baby will eventually be your last baby. You have no way of knowing how sad this is, I guess, until you hold your baby in your arms and realize that even at that moment, time is fleeting away."

2 comments:

The Tylers said...

That's so funny that you wrote about that today.... Bailey is 2 months old today. But anyways, last night I was giving her a bath and she is starting to splash around more and "play" during bath time, and I was trying to get Anthony to come watch her. So I started singing that country song "you're gonna miss this, you're gonna want this back, you're gonna wish these days hadn't gone by so fast"! So like you said, it is hard sometimes, I so wish I could get more things done around the house, but I choose to enjoy every day and treasure these moments!

Anonymous said...

What a sweet post. They DO grow up awfully fast. On one hand, you hate it because you're "losing" your baby, but on the other hand, every day is more wonderful and fun than the last. Thank you for the reminder that our children are truly miracles and gifts. Our world would be a better place if all parents felt that way!