When I returned to work six months ago, one of the other pumping moms had a little boy who was five months old. At that time, Lily was just 5 weeks old. I couldn't imagine life with a 5 month old baby. I was thinking about those early feelings the other day, how I tried to imagine how different life would be with a 5 month old. She was so experienced. I couldn't wait to be an experienced mom with an older baby. And now, Lily is going to be 7 months old in a few days! I didn't ever think that we'd get this far so quickly. It seemed like this was an unattainable moment. And, I imagined that it would be so different from the actuality of our life today. I still feel inexperienced. You can't plan for what life is really going to be like, because you're missing an ingredient: the personality of your baby. You cannot possibly know who this person is going to be.
In our case, Lily is a ball of energy. She loves walking and shopping. She is constantly laughing and smiling. She loves new noises. The rustling of a plastic bag used to scare her, but now she loves it. Grandma's nails tapping on the door elicits the best giggle. She loves to eat anything and everything put in front of her. Specifically, she loves to feed herself. Avocado is her favorite food. She loves to meet new people, but she doesn't really like to be held by strangers. She loves playing with toys on the tray of her walker, but hasn't quite figured out how to walk in it. She unintentionally scoots herself this way and that. Her favorite song is the ABC's, and she loves to be sung to. Sometimes, we start singing and she swoons like a teenage girl at a Justin Bieber concert. Oh gawd, she loves her daddy. As soon as she sees him, it's time to play, and they spend the next 10 minutes playing a mix of hide and seek, "Where's the baby?", and "I'm gonna get you!". When there's nothing else to do, we turn on the music and dance for the rest of the morning. At the end of a long, hard day of playing and learning, she loves to just curl up next to me and nurse to sleep. She is generally a light sleeper and only sleeps short stretches before looking for a boob again.
I find that I have to give myself an attitude adjustment at times. I had not realized that life would never be the same again, and anything I used to do before I got pregnant, I was probably never going to get to do again. We would just love her so much that she would obviously just come with us and do whatever we do and be happy as a clam. Yeah right. Being such a short sleeper, I am often laying with her for 10-12 hours a night. Last night, she woke up three times before I gave up and just went to bed. I had managed to get in a bath, the dishes, and a pumping session before kicking my feet up with a beer. Well, two minutes into that beer she woke up that third time. As I slunk my way upstairs, grumbling about never getting any time to myself, I realized that's just silly. I don't want my memories of this time to be angry. I certainly don't want to not remember them at all. So, I checked my attitude in the hallway and enjoyed spending the night cuddled next to my little lady. She has the sweetest face. I cannot believe how big she is getting.
I heard this girl at work describing her experience with her broken foot to a coworker. I realized that she was in the broken foot club. That she has a set of knowledge and experience that only people who have had broken feet can relate to. I betcha she knows a lot more things about broken feet now than she ever did before. It is that way with many things in life, especially having a baby. There is a set of knowledge and experience that you have when going through pregnancy and childbirth. And, once you have a baby, you're no longer in the pregnant club, because you've had these other experience that make you something else. You're a mom!
And, this week, I celebrate that we made it somewhere. We made it here. And, I have no idea where we will be in 5 months or in 5 years. I cannot imagine life with a toddler or a kindergartner. How scary and exciting. On to the next adventure.
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