This past weekend, I took a quick trip with my family to a nearby city to help me get some quality time with my kids away from the pressures of my “office” aka my house. Hard to relax on the couch when you work on the couch too.
So we quickly packed a bag and hit the road. For the drive down, I had four Capri Suns (only to give them during the last 10 minutes or so; I did not want to hit a rest stop restroom), a box of Cheerios, a couple bananas and some pretzels. I packed three outfits for each kid and grabbed my daughter’s inhaler, nebulizer and EpiPen. I loaded up a new movie on the iPad and we were set.
I packed that bag in the same amount of time it would have taken me to pack the diaper bag to take my daughter to Target when she was a baby. I almost amazed myself by how much my “Mommy groove” has improved over the years.
When I laid eyes on my daughter for the first time, I could barely breathe from the fear. In front of me was a real, live baby, with my blood and her daddy’s blood running through her veins. Life just got real. The nurses handed her to me and I got the hold wrong. “No, do it like this,” one of them said, positioning her in my arms so her head was resting in the crook of my elbow. Damn, I thought. I was already making mistakes?
There were a lot of bumps in the road: learning to breastfeed (ouch), postpartum depression (tears), sleep deprivation (yawn). When she was about six weeks old, I sat on the floor in the middle of the living room (really just an open space off the kitchen in the tiny apartment we lived in) and wondered aloud when her mother was coming to pick her up.
She kind of giggled and I had to laugh at the question myself. I was her mother. This was it. No one else was coming for her. She was mine. She always would be.
I wasn’t a baby-wearing co-sleeping mama, but I felt intimately connected to this little girl. She was a chunky baby at birth (almost 9 pounds), so I (not so creatively) called her my little “Chunk-Chunk.”
Me and Chunk-Chunk went everywhere together. One day, I stopped over my parents’ house and my dad remarked with a hint of pride in his voice, “Every time I see you, I see Ayanna. You never go anywhere without that little girl, huh?” Sometimes I would take her to class and the other students would coo over her. One professor offered to keep her for me in her office while I finished final exams.
Chunk-Chunk is 5 now. Five!! I see her running around on a playground and I think, “Who would have known that the little girl I was so scared to hold would have grown up to be this beautiful, confident, talkative 5-year-old?” I almost wanted to write a song about it.
People always tell me, “Cherish these moments. They grow up so fast.” And children do inexplicably grow faster than we’re ready for, but slower than we think. I’m at the stage where 5 so quickly turns to 6 which so quickly turns to 10 and so on and so on.
It’s hard to believe I’ve been a mommy for five years now. Although I feel like I’m no longer a rookie, I know I’ve learned a lot and will continue to learn a lot about being a mommy to my two. My kids are really, really well taken care of. I’m proud of myself.
If I could go visit my new mommy self in the hospital, I’d kiss her gently on the forehead and tell her how amazing her kids are going to be and how wonderful she’s going to do as their mom. I know she’d need to hear it.
This post warms my heart. I can totally relate to this as I was terrified when I brought my daughter home. I thought I was going to break her. I used to look at my daughter and have to remind myself that she was my daughter. I would immediately feel like the most blessed person in the word.
It will be curious to see what my reaction will be the second time around.
What a nice post. I only have one son who is 2 and I think how the adjustment to motherhood was tough at first and how much fun I have with him now. I do think of how I want to add another one and will I go through this adjustment again, but it is so fun to watch them grow. What a wonderful blessing to be a mother.