–Kerstin
Gather ’round everyone. It’s going to be hard to follow “choregasms” and “choreplay” so I am going to take it in a different direction. I’m going to bring it down a little, be a little honest, make it a little real, yo.
Parenting isn’t all organic food and hand-made toys, nor is it all bitter resentment and surreptitious wine gobbling when no one is looking. It’s moments. Snapshots in time that age and mellow as time passes. Things today that make us want to cry, scream, or pretend we don’t even HAVE kids, will not even be remembered as we watch our grown children pack up their things and move out on their own.
Watching my son lately puts me in a reflective mood. He’s my baby, but a baby no longer. Gone are the chubby legs, rounded belly and chubby cheeks of toddlerhood. At the age of (almost) 6 years old, he has ceased to be my baby, and has become a “kid.” A “big boy.” It’s a bittersweet realization. I watch him ride his bike or scooter, strong legs working, forehead furrowed in concentration, and I miss those days of being able to tuck him into the crook of my arm, or stuff him into a Baby Bjorn. I wonder where the time has gone. It seems like I didn’t have enough time with any of my kids as babies. It seems like each stage of babyhood, then toddlerhood, was spent trying to get to the NEXT stage, rather than in the moment.
At 9 months of pregnancy, you just want the baby to be born. Once baby is born, you can’t wait for them to sleep for more than an hour at a clip. You want them to be able to hold their heads up, to be able to support some of their own weight, to roll, raise their heads, sit up without help, hold their own bottle. ANYTHING to make your job a little easier.
Then you wonder when they’ll stop eating every 2 hours, when you can start feeding them solid foods so they stay fuller longer, and when will they sleep for more than 4 hours at a clip? And so it goes.
I look back now, and feel cheated somehow. Like I missed something. Like I was so busy looking forward, I couldn’t see what was going on right in front of me. Time seems to speed up once you have kids. Where I once measured the passage of time by MY age, MY experiences and achievements, I now measure it by my children. My oldest is 9 ½. Shit. There’s ten years that flew by. In 8 years, she’ll be graduating from high school, going to college. 8… years.
Sometimes, it just doesn’t feel like there is enough time. Enough time for them to be kids. Enough time for me to ENJOY them as kids. Enough time to hug them, snuggle with them, be silly with them.
Look, I’m not trying to blow smoke up your collective arse. There are days when I WISH it was 13 years from now, and I could have my life back. Ok, actually there are days I wish it was 13 years AGO, and I had my life and my BODY back. But I love my kids, God damn it. And I just wish I could have them as kids a little while longer.
Awwww K…
I’m crying…and smiling.
LOVE this! <3
Baaaawwwwwwwwwwww!
Me too, ma’m.
Words so true. I love them to pieces and I would not want to live without them. I want to make time slowdown so I can enjoy and remember every little thing.
Again with the tears. Thank you! I look at my “baby” and think these things all the time. I am so in awe of his beauty and impressed with the person he’s becoming, it’s hard to believe that it was already 4.5 years ago now, that he was just a squishy, helpless, sweet-smelling baby.
Keep writing! I’m reading. You rock, Mama.
Peace.
Enjoy each moment. Whether it be in anger, fear, love, happy, or sad. That’s where I want to be with my kids. A fully feeling being, present with the people I love most around me.
My oldest is an 18 year old. And my youngest is turning one next Wednesday. It feels like my oldest was that age… yesterday. OK, day before yesterday, since it feels like the baby was born yesterday. God damn time.
I couldn’t have said it better. Thanks for making me cry…again! Seems like yesterday we were watching tv all day, swimming, walking to 7-11 for a slurpee without a care in the world. Now we are 40 (you will be in a few months so shut it!) and our babies aren’t babies anymore. “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” ~Ferris Bueller
I know, Hooch. How did that “happen”??!?
Oh Gos, lets stop there. We don’t want this thread to be a long string of uselss movie quotes, do we?
You think time goes fast… My “baby” is 30 and I still remember the days.. good and boooring. SAHM is the surrogate for the whole world…. You can do it all as You don’t WORK!! What a crock of ( fill in the blank) . Still I love all my kids, their spouses and my grandchildren, and am still glad I could hand the grandchildren back when the green stuff ran out of the diaper!
Wonderfully put. I could not have said it better myself-it was like you took the thoughts right out of my head and put them into words. I am so smitten with your blogs and facebook page. You ladies are wonderful, and you help to lift that inherent guilt that I carry as a mother. You know the one, where it feels like everything we do “wrong” makes us a crappy mom; Or that polishing off a whole bottle of wine after the child/children are tucked into bed is reason to feel bad about ourselves; or secretly missing the freedoms we had before parenthood-secretly because if we admit this out loud we are terrible, horrible, evil people. Thank you, for being you!