I Have a What..?
Okay, so I did it. Everyone advised against it and I really tried not to. I just couldn't help it. It happened and though I don't regret it overall, I still wish in some small way it didn't happen.
I blinked.
I blinked and all of a sudden I have a kid in my care. A kid who motors around my house at the speed of light. A kid who reaches for the dog's water dish for the 87th time that day and stops to look right at me, smirks a little, reaches again, smirks a little more, and then dive-bombs the dish with her fat little hand, splashing water everywhere. I come over to her, she crawls away faster than a speeding bullet, shrieking and giggling the whole time.
Holy crap. That once far-off word I, until very recently, regarded with only mild interest (in the same way I wonder about my fifties) - "toddler" - is very soon to be my new world.
Everyone says the time flies after you have a child. I have to say I only partly agree with this. The first six months or so of my daughter's life didn't fly so much for me. It went quickly, sure. But the thing is, babies don't really do a whole heck of a lot in those first few months. We had to wait four and a half months for our girl to even roll over on her own. So there was a lot of waiting. My husband and I hovering over our little pork chop waiting for her to do...something. Then she rolled over. Woo hoo! Spread the word, we've got movement here! Great moment.
Then came the sitting up on her own. Another lovely achievement. Then came the rocking on all fours, contemplating crawling. Also very cute.
But then, somehow - and very quickly - the rocking went to crawling. That was two months ago. I know this because I burned that fact into my brain: daughter-crawled-nine-months. I do not actually remember in my brain of brains that this occurred two months ago. I do not know this because I do not know what happened to those two months following "The Crawl" in my memory. Gone - well, not gone exactly, because I'm not sure they were ever there. This, because I'm not sure there has been a day since the first crawling began that my daughter has not come up with some new trick with which to amaze me. It's a lot to try to keep track of. So I don't. That crawling date is cemented. Everything else...not. I know she pulled herself to standing at some point. I know she likes to walk with help.
Problem is, I'm just too busy to even make note of these incredible leaps. Now, of course, as a mother you never feel "not busy". But now to add (a very big item) to the list I'm busy keeping track of my daughter. Trying my darnedest to avoid disasters involving sharp corners and her soft little melon. Trying to wash and dry our cleaver and chef knives with a squirmy, squealy appendage to my legs. Trying to vacuum the floor without the little one either a) strangling herself with the cord, or b) gnawing through the cord with the vacuum running. The fun never stops.
Danger-related fun is not the only fun to be had at this point. Another source of funnery is the the fact that now I actually have to start this parenting - in that slightly negative sense of the word - thing. "No" has to become part of my regular lexicon. As evidenced by the dog dish-related behaviour, the purity of my daughter's motivations now has to be considered. She-devil she is not, but this little angel does come with a slightly bent halo.
I feel just as unprepared for this stage of life with a wee one as I did at the outset of the newborn stage. I'm still worried, I still do not have a good handle on what exactly I've gotten myself into here, but regardless of my preparedness for it, my life as a mom will go on.
Sorry. I meant to say my joyous, amazing, wouldn't-change-it-if-ever-I-had-the-remote-opportunity, life as a mom.
Yeah, that's better.
I blinked.
I blinked and all of a sudden I have a kid in my care. A kid who motors around my house at the speed of light. A kid who reaches for the dog's water dish for the 87th time that day and stops to look right at me, smirks a little, reaches again, smirks a little more, and then dive-bombs the dish with her fat little hand, splashing water everywhere. I come over to her, she crawls away faster than a speeding bullet, shrieking and giggling the whole time.
Holy crap. That once far-off word I, until very recently, regarded with only mild interest (in the same way I wonder about my fifties) - "toddler" - is very soon to be my new world.
Everyone says the time flies after you have a child. I have to say I only partly agree with this. The first six months or so of my daughter's life didn't fly so much for me. It went quickly, sure. But the thing is, babies don't really do a whole heck of a lot in those first few months. We had to wait four and a half months for our girl to even roll over on her own. So there was a lot of waiting. My husband and I hovering over our little pork chop waiting for her to do...something. Then she rolled over. Woo hoo! Spread the word, we've got movement here! Great moment.
Then came the sitting up on her own. Another lovely achievement. Then came the rocking on all fours, contemplating crawling. Also very cute.
But then, somehow - and very quickly - the rocking went to crawling. That was two months ago. I know this because I burned that fact into my brain: daughter-crawled-nine-months. I do not actually remember in my brain of brains that this occurred two months ago. I do not know this because I do not know what happened to those two months following "The Crawl" in my memory. Gone - well, not gone exactly, because I'm not sure they were ever there. This, because I'm not sure there has been a day since the first crawling began that my daughter has not come up with some new trick with which to amaze me. It's a lot to try to keep track of. So I don't. That crawling date is cemented. Everything else...not. I know she pulled herself to standing at some point. I know she likes to walk with help.
Problem is, I'm just too busy to even make note of these incredible leaps. Now, of course, as a mother you never feel "not busy". But now to add (a very big item) to the list I'm busy keeping track of my daughter. Trying my darnedest to avoid disasters involving sharp corners and her soft little melon. Trying to wash and dry our cleaver and chef knives with a squirmy, squealy appendage to my legs. Trying to vacuum the floor without the little one either a) strangling herself with the cord, or b) gnawing through the cord with the vacuum running. The fun never stops.
Danger-related fun is not the only fun to be had at this point. Another source of funnery is the the fact that now I actually have to start this parenting - in that slightly negative sense of the word - thing. "No" has to become part of my regular lexicon. As evidenced by the dog dish-related behaviour, the purity of my daughter's motivations now has to be considered. She-devil she is not, but this little angel does come with a slightly bent halo.
I feel just as unprepared for this stage of life with a wee one as I did at the outset of the newborn stage. I'm still worried, I still do not have a good handle on what exactly I've gotten myself into here, but regardless of my preparedness for it, my life as a mom will go on.
Sorry. I meant to say my joyous, amazing, wouldn't-change-it-if-ever-I-had-the-remote-opportunity, life as a mom.
Yeah, that's better.
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