My Third Baby
My daughter just turned 5 months old a week ago. I cannot believe how quickly these last 5 months have gone.
Right now she is so young and every day she does something new and different. She is learning to crawl, she is learning to grab things, and she is changing in her appearance what seems like daily. I am trying to hold onto each one of these moments with all of my being.
I know how fast it goes. I know how you blink one day and then they are turning 4, talking your ear off, and coming up with new ideas with their crazy imagination all on their own. It happens too quickly. They say that parenthood has the longest days and the shortest years. I don't know who gets those long days but I wake up and all of a sudden it feels like an hour has gone by and it's an entire week later. It's slowly killing me knowing just how quickly my babies are growing up and how these precious moments with them are disappearing like sand falling through my fingers. I can't grab them fast enough and when I try and hold onto them I lose others.
I fell in love with each of my children at different points in time. Some mothers talk about that instantaneous mothers love that they feel the second they hold their baby. I didn't get that with any of mine and I am ok with that. Honestly after each birth I was so drugged up from the epidural, happy to be alive, and happy for a healthy baby that any other feelings were pushed away for the sake of just surviving. Those early days of having a baby I was so scared of losing them in their most fragile newborn state that all I could focus on was doing everything in my power, even though my body was broken, to make sure they had everything they could possibly need. But, with each baby, that 'mothers love', that feeling that you cannot quantify unless you have already felt it with your child, eventually took over me and has changed my life forever.
I have no way to describe that feeling to someone who hasn't felt it. You love that person, that baby, more than anything in the world. You love them more than you love yourself, more than anything you could ever own, more than anything you could ever want in life. It consumes you, you are obsessed, you are infatuated, and it replaces everything you thought you knew or cared about previous to experiencing it. I joke to my husband that I know I am a mom because I just love how my daughters poop smells. It's weird, I know. But, everything about her makes me happy.
And then, that's just it with motherhood, your children change you, they become absolutely irreplaceable in your life, and then they leave. The first step is school, my oldest is about to enter Pre-K next year and then I know I'm going to blink and he's going to be going to college. They make friends and start spending their weekends with them. Hanging out with mom becomes the not-cool thing to do. I cannot imagine how that will break me. But, in the conundrum that is motherhood, I am excited for those moments for them. I am excited for them all to grow up and experience friendships and those special moments, at whatever cost it is to me. I am excited for them to fall in love, get married, and have their own children. Even though I know that means they will leave me. I want to give them the world, but in doing so, I know that I am going to slowly break in sadness as my relationships with them changes. I find solace in knowing that the changes that come to those relationships don't change the love you have for one another.
My third baby is also my last. My husband and I, unless there is some divine intervention, are not planing on having any more (for now at least). So each moment with her, each day, each thing she does, I savor as much as I can without missing out on all the other moments with my other children.
I know now, to take as many pictures as possible, to miss the t.v. show and spend time laying on the nursery floor with her, to get up any time she needs in the middle of the night and forgo my own sleep, and to do so without complaining. Because one day, too close to now, I will miss this crazy time. One day she won't need me anymore, and that's ok. But, while she still does, I will be there, I will show her the love I have for her, and I will be so grateful that I get to be her mother along with everything else that comes with it.
