Okay, so I know when you have kiddos, one of the greatest joys is watching them grow up. Everybody told me this. Mothers would look at my sprouting belly and shake their head saying "Enjoy every second...it goes too fast." Or they would approach me as I stood bleary eyed in the diaper aisle with a screaming 6 week old clasped to my chest and say "Isn't it just a beautiful thing? Enjoy it, it goes so fast."
And I would look at these women and think "Are you effing kidding me? I can't wait until she gets older! I'm not sleeping, I'm covered in baby goo, and my breasts have become a filling station for this little parasite!" Instead of saying anything, I would simply nod and smile.
Oh how the tides have turned. Now I am the nimrod approaching every woman with a newborn, spouting off at the mouth about how sweeeet, and enjooooooy it, and how happyyyyy you must be. I'm sure, just like I did, these women are thinking of what a clueless moron I am.
I AM clueless, because in the divine order of things, you forget those first few months. God makes you, or nobody would have more than one.
Let's be honest here...kids are a blessing, but Lord allmighty are they hard work. If they aren't bugging you with their noise, they are worrying you with their silence. If they aren't clinging to you and fussing, they are attacking the dog with markers. It's an endless dance of balance, trying to keep your own sanity in tact while keeping these little individuals not only alive, but happy.
I know in my case, I have a really really good little girl. Really good. Sweet, happy, and loving. Affectionate and compassionate. Not to mention smart as a whip, impatient, and hell bent on getting her way. All of my hopes that she would have daddy's laid back personality are looooong gone, my friends, long gone.
The past year and a half has flow with such speed. She has gone rapidly from this lil peanut:
To this beautiful little girl:
How did this happen? It went so fast!
See, there I go again. But it's true, it does goes fast. You blink and you tiny little boo is a toddler, capable of playing on her own, deciding her own agenda, eating by herself, pulling all the toilet paper off the roll in 1.2 seconds, emptying your dresser drawers in total silence, singing the chorus of "Wonder Pets", and asking for juice, milk, food, cuddles, and her music to be played on her CD player.
How does this happen?
Well, I can tell you this much. As much as I want to be the woman who will approach that sad bleary eyed mother in the freezer section at WalMart and tell her things will get better, one day she will actually lose the baby fat and be able to shave more than one calf at a time, etc etc- What I will end up saying is "Enjoy it, it goes so fast."
Because that one sentence encompasses all of this: One day you will look up and your baby will be walking, she will look at you and say "I ludge you", she will take a huge tumble off the couch and scare you to death, she will have a fever of 105 and want ONLY YOU for 3 days, she will laugh from the other room and it will make you cry, she will eat pancakes and eggs and run at top speed through a lawn sprinkler, she will make your proud and make you angry and make you want to pull out your hair.
And all of, all of it....goes too fast.
