I am transitioning seasons in my life right now. My three year olds are doing more and more for themselves and making it very apparent that I am not the mom of babies anymore.
- Almost without fail I sleep through the night.
- Jabe and Phoebe sleep in big kid beds and brush their own teeth with me just giving them a quick once over.
- Diapers are gone with the exception of sleep time and even then, Jabe is dry most of the time and they both throw their used pull-ups away and put on underwear.
- I don't have to mess with bibs or cleaning high chairs.
- My kitchen clean up is easier with the food to mouth ratio increasing.
- The twins don't even use a stroller anymore!
The saying, "The days are long but the years are fast", resinates with me on so many levels. I am sad to say that in the drudgery of living the everyday grind my goal can sometimes becomes surviving to make it to nap time and then to bed time. Then before I know it all those nap and bed times add up to years of prodding them to grow up. I don't want to be too hard on myself with rushing babyhood, for a momma it's down right messy, hard work. But with the knowledge that our family is complete and babyhood is over, I am ready to slow things down a bit and savor.
I found that I really started noticing this change over the summer. We went to our family cabin for a vacation in McCall. Although if you're a parent, you know that vacationing with your kids is not really a "vacation" yet just a change in routine. Most of the time requiring more work than at home because of the packing, unpacking, sleep adjustments, hyper kids, and baby-proofing a new place. This year we were unusually light with much less baby gear. In general they don't have to be watched every second and are all marvelous sleepers so Matt and I were truly able to relax. So much so that we thought we'd try a family canoe trip.
We all stayed dry and each took turns trying out different moose calls. They never came and I am slightly grateful for that.I'm not going to lie, I wouldn't mind time traveling and taking this now six-year-old on a stroll:
Or smell this little girls newborn breath:
Or rock this sweet baby Jabe to sleep:
Gotta go, I think my milk just let down.
3 comments:
I'm so glad that I am not the only one that writes posts like this. Sometimes I feel bad when I just have to WRITE about my feelings, because who knows if others want to READ my feelings.
But I love READING yours! Just think this week you wrote "Savoring" and I wrote "Surrendering". Two really important things for moms:)
I have loved being a mommy of babies with you and will cherish our next seasons too. Your babies were some of the sweetest, most fragile, children's book illustration like, babies that I have ever seen.
They remain precious!
ditto, becca!
The other day I told Luke to go take a bath and I realized he has been taking baths without any help from me! Then I was all freaked out because I had no idea how long this had been going on and why, why, why??? isn't it on my blog or in some baby book that on such and such day, my boy bathed on his own for the first time....sigh.
I guess "firsts" aren't the same as they get older.
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