Today my second twin learned how to crawl. And I started planning their first birthday party. And I watched a Windex commercial. And all of those things made me want to cry (the commercial totally did!) because time is going too damn fast.
I am still in disbelief over my rank as a Mother and now I am going to be a Mother to toddlers?
How can these days, many of which took eons to pass, seem to combine at light speed into ten months? And where is this speedy semblance of time during the nights that seem like they will never end, or the days I spent alone with my newborn twins and their reflux?
The paradox of parenting
I think that time moves at a different frequency for parents, the days seem long but they add up so quickly. You wish them away as you do the dishes and wash diapers but then want to instantly take it back as the era of babyhood seems to move into your hindsight.
Just yesterday my girls nursed to sleep for the first time in weeks, and I didn’t have the heart to move them.
I kept thinking, what if this is the last time? The last time they surrender completely and relax into me, the last time I can look down at those two sleeping little faces and know that everything of importance is right there between my arms. Dinner waited. So did dishes and laundry. And I don’t regret it for a second because when time passes as fast as it does, you need to remind yourself that this might be it.
We look towards every little milestone with such high expectations, sitting up, crawling, and walking.
We wait with baited breath, anxious to see the first time, to document it and freeze it in a photo frame for all eternity. I think it is time to shift our focus back to the basics. We need to slow down and focus on these moments because we never know when they will be our last. We need to enjoy the silly peek-a-boo games that we play on endless loop because soon they will lose their wonder and be gone.
Maybe instead of focusing on the “firsts”, we need to remember that we only get one “last” as well, and there is no predicting when it is going to come.
If today is going to be the last time that one of my beans falls asleep while wrapped up in a carrier will I regret that her napping that way resulted in me not getting dinner made? Or will I regret that I didn’t sit back and watch her sleep, enjoying these last precious moments of babyhood before the busy toddler phase takes over?
I am going to try to slow down and appreciate it
I am going to snuggle my babies whenever they allow it, try to remember to welcome them into my bed every night when they need Mommy’s help to sleep (and drink ALL the coffee the next morning!), appreciate the closeness when they are having an “all boob all the time” kind of day, and remind myself that one day, much too soon, they won’t scream because I moved out of their line of site. I am going to try to slow down and appreciate it because time is moving much too quickly, and even more than the firsts, I don’t want to miss the lasts.
Our next reco: The Joy and Heartbreak of Your Last Pregnancy
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