Before you have a baby, you hear so much about how fast time goes, and how much you should cherish every moment.
Which is true.
When you’re in the thick of being a brand new parent, sometimes it’s hard to just be present and enjoy. But me? I took that advice to heart and I held my babies ALL the time. I rarely put them down, I even used to go to the bathroom with a sleeping baby (and then a sleeping toddler) in my arms. It’s true. I knew it was going to go fast and I didn’t want to miss a moment.
It feels like this phase lasts forever but it’s such an incredibly short window of time.
Then we had our second and I felt like I was drowning. It was HARD. I had no support, no friends and a husband who worked way more than he was home.
And when he was home he had to catch up on sleep from working so much.
Survival mode kicked in.
Soon we went from “one signing show a day” (it had to be educational, of course), to “yes, you can watch another Octonauts… it’s ok that you’ve been watching for four hours.Here, have some dry cereal if you’re hungry.”
Ok, maybe it wasn’t that bad… But some days, I think it was. And that was ok, it was about surviving life with a newborn and a toddler.
Sometimes, it's just about survival.
We decided that we would have one more, but we were only allowing a few months to conceive or not. If it didn’t happen, we would stick with just two and be happy with it.
After all, it took almost two years of *not preventing* to conceive the second, what are the odds it would happen so quickly with a third?
Well, the odds were pretty good and the second month we tried, just two weeks after our second child’s first birthday, we were pregnant again.
Boy, it was hard.
Three kids under 5 years was not always easy. Luckily my husband took some time off this time around and it was exactly what we needed, I’m not sure we all would have survived otherwise.
But for more than six years, we had a baby or toddler in the house, often times both, and that meant so many things.
- It means figuring out bedtimes when all three needed me.
- It meant making sure there was never any small toys on the floor, and baby gates were everywhere, and thank goodness for the dog cleaning up around the high chair for those years!
- Oh and if there was silence for more than 30 seconds, you’d better go check what they were up to because it was probably something they shouldn’t be doing.
- It also meant there was often someone crying, and there was always one who hated being outside in the snow so winter play (which is about 5-6 months of the year) so outdoor time was super limited.
- There was never ending diapers (although we did get almost a year break between the first two because our first potty learned super early… More on that later). We definitely got our money’s worth out of our cloth diapers!
I knew these days were fleeting.
I knew these babies were all going to grow before my eyes and even though I’ve never missed a day, I often looked at them in wonderment, unsure of when they got so damn big.
Even with three, I held all of my babies for their naps until they were 2 and beyond.
It was my favorite part of the day.
I’ve been really terrible at making one on one time a priority, but I have always tried to let them each know how much I love them at different parts throughout the day.
They’re still little, they’re only 3, 5 & just about 8 right now. There is still lots of “I need a hug, Momma” moments, and “can we snuggle” and “I love you, you’re the best momma ever”.
As tears well in my eyes writing this, I am so damn grateful for it all.
You know what else I’m grateful for? No longer having to worry about any small things on the floors. Whether a baby gate was accidentally left open on the stairs.
This week has had many silent moments and I’ve checked on the kids, or had them check on each other, to find that they’re just busy playing with Lego or coloring and doing their own things.
One of my favorite milestones we’ve just hit this year: they can all get themselves dressed to go out in the snow …. And they ALL go out, and walk through they 15-ish inches of snow to get to the tiny hill in the backyard, carrying their sleds and playing together for an hour. This is the first year since having kids that they have all enjoying being in the snow.
It’s such a simple thing but it’s such a great feeling.
All three can now feed the pets, and wash floors, set the table, put their laundry in the basket, dress themselves, get their own snacks and water bottles, put away their toys and belongings.
Oh man, I loved my babies so much.
The warmth, the snuggles, the way only Momma, and sometimes only Daddy, could make them stop crying, being their whole world… And that smell. *Sigh*. My stomach still does that flip flop feeling when I remember the smell of my babies and the way their felt nestled into my chest and into my neck. My eyes well up again with the memories.
I soaked up every single moment I could and I’m so thankful I did because the days feel so long but years are so, so short.
That line is not as true for anything else as much as it is for a parent.
But I’m done now.
I’m so grateful for those moments and I never want to do them again.
This new phase of being a little less needed is amazing and I’m thoroughly going to soak it up too, because they still need me, it’s just a little less.
We have a lot of years left before they don’t need their mama anymore, and I will always be here whenever they do.
But seeing them grow is a different kind of awesome.
These short years are flying by and I’m not missing a day of them, yet every day I ask “where did the time go”.
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