My baby is turning one next week. In fact, today is one year and two days past my due date (she was born nine days late). I cannot quite wrap my brain around the fact that an entire year has passed since I was pregnant with Isadora. So much has changed in that year; Isadora has grown from a floppy, grunty baby into an interactive, social toddler, but I still feel like I was JUST pregnant. I have never dreaded a birthday so much in my entire life-- not Sydney's first, not Ivy's first, not even my 30th. Just the thought of July 6th makes my blood pressure rise and a lump appear in my throat; I cannot say it out loud without crying.
Yesterday, I passed a mirror while I was wearing a sleeping Isadora on my front. I was struck by how non-baby-like she appeared as she hung there. Gone are the round, chubby, roly-poly limbs that snap back into fetal position because they have not yet forgotten the womb. In their place, now, are the long, lean limbs of an active toddler. I suppose my sadness is at least in part because she is most likely our last child. As I have written before, I am excited to move forward to the next, non-baby phase of our life, but I am sad that I will never give birth or have an "infant" again. Infants are awesome and crazy and exciting and fun. I may not be religious, but I recognize a miracle when I see one. This, however, is not so much about having more babies, what bothers me is more is that the ones I already have are growing too fast.
I feel all my girls' childhoods slipping away faster than I can keep-up with. Sydney is a tall, lanky 6 1/2-going-on-14-year-old. She goes to school all day long and doesn't know why she thinks its funny to hold hands with boys. Wasn't it last week that I weaned her? Ivy is fiercely independent, and will only snuggle with me on her schedule. From both of them, I get a limp "lean" if I ask for a hug at the wrong time. And Isadora, oh, my darling babe, she is clever and funny and snuggly and dear and I love her just the way she is. Even at their worst, my three girls are still the best. But now Isadora's one?? What happened? I was JUST getting married and starting this whole baby thing. How can it be over already? It is too much for me.
I have recognized the speed at which my children are growing for
many years now. In response, I do try to "cherish every moment," as
they say. I stop several times per day to concentrate on what each of
my children look like, what their mannerisms are, what their voices
sound like, even what they smell like (normally sunscreen and
Goldfish). I take it all in, with all my senses, trying to somehow preserve this precious time in my mind so the memories are less likely to fade like I know they will. I remind myself that this time is fleeting, and even the
tough, trying moments will have a rosy glow in my mind a few years from now. Time is speeding by, nonetheless, leaving me in an angry, sad stupor.
On top of all that, Isadora's first birthday signifies the end of our baby days, and that makes me old. Thirty and forty are young when you have not started a family yet, or are just getting started. But now that I am thirty and I am done having kids, I feel OLD. No matter what a person's age is, when you're done with the baby-making, you are old. Old, old, old. I did not realize I felt this way until recently.
So, instead of having a crisis about my thirtieth birthday, I am having one about Isadora's first.