It’s passing too fast…

All of it, I mean…  pregnancy, infancy… etc…  TTC didn’t, unfortunately.  *laugh*  On the 4th of July, we went to a friend’s house where our sons met again.  Nate was born in February and it is fun to see what we will expect in a few weeks.

I’ve said it before…

There’s a noise in the night.  I’m probably in some random “just started” dreaming mode where deep sleep is finally reached and my brain is starting to what I call unload everything from the day.  There’s the “dolphin sound” as I call it.  A pause.  Another grunt.  Maybe even a slip of baby gas that resembles a 40 year old man’s fart.  My own internal groan as it’s going to be me that hears all this.  Hubby is still sleeping soundly.  After a few of these, never a true crying out loud thing as I mostly subscribe to attachment parenting, which by the way doesn’t mean the baby is spoiled, but that the baby is attached to my own senses… my own keen understanding of what every single cry means…  Well it’s obvious to me that I’m there.  I wanted to build for my son a very safe first three months near me where he would feel safe and secure with no feelings of overwhelmingness in a strange place with no sounds of his mother nearby. I wanted him to not be jerked from the womb a month early and then somehow have to come to grips with the world around him alone.  No other mammal that I know of does that.  The kangaroo has their pouch – maybe the first mothers wearing their baby with their own made pouches.  The monkeys on their backs.   The canine searching around for the safest place where she and pups are snug together.  Only humans probably have an upbringing as diverse as cosleeping all the way up to things not mentioned (illegal baby in dumpsters, etc….).

I only say all this because the baby is almost 3 months old.  I’m going to continue to go like this until August when I pick up a couple more days of work, and I DREAD it!  It’s a rite of passage of sorts, and it didn’t help when a good older friend of mine pointed out while speaking with a mother from Africa wanted to know, “Why do Americans put their babies in cages?”  Ouch.  Cages indeed.  We pay top dollar at times for a cherry finish to the cage with slats and a private room wired to a monitor so that we can train them early on to be alone.  I never thought about it from that point-of-view as I am so American.  We are what we learn.  Now I’m not saying I believe that, but it’s an interesting thought.  It’s the same lady that told me that they had outlawed the introduction of strollers in that country due to strollers being “anti-family.”  The mother was supposed to “hold” the baby.  The baby does indeed love the snuggly warmth from the mother or father, and what in the world is more important in those first months that HAS to be done rather than sitting, enjoying, and savoring those first months he/she has in the world? 

Sometimes it’s healthy to think in a different way rather than what we are used to.

Anyway, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, these little ones grow too fast.  It won’t be long and these 2am or 3am middle of the night whines and cries will be replaced with long sleeps and naps.  Those will be replaced by grade school homework woes and issues with other classmates.  And the cycle moves on…  I will forever be grateful of the lack of schedule I have and the lack of knowing when the next 7 hour stretch of sleep will come.  It will be awhile solely due to the pumping, and even THAT (somehow) will be missed. 

I will miss being able to hold him in the middle of the night on my chest propped up with 5 pillows in the bed with hubby sleeping next to me.  His little snores and sleepy eyes looking at me.  And me knowing he is feeling so secure and innocent in this world.  He’s not having to put himself to sleep.  He goes to sleep naturally.  I will miss those first weeks when I slept on the couch that way when he woke up every 2-3 hours on my chest.  My back would ache, but there he was, the little angel right there – as I still say – snug as a bug in a rug.

There’ll come a time when I hold him that he wants to get down and explore.  I will miss being able to just hold hold hold him and love him. 

So here I am up at 2:30 am, the first time this early in a few weeks, and I smile.  I smile because it reminds me of how early it used to be – every three hours almost on the nose by his own internal clock – and how it wore me down… and how I’ve already come so far with him with so many stumbling blocks along the way… things that full term mommies don’t have to necessarily deal with… and I’ve fallen more in love with this little guy that I was so lucky to mother. 

I hope I can embrace every single moment as I am now.  I don’t want to constantly grieve the loss of every stage – I want to fully enjoy them, put them to rest in a place saved for a sibling in the very near future – and eagerly anticipate the next one…  hopefully it’ll send me into a greater place of joy than the previous.

I’m feeling super joyful this wee hour of the morning.  I have to get back to bed and peek at him one more time.  Just know that in about 3 hours, he’ll be back on my chest as I’ll grab him from his nearby bassinett snoozing probably until noon!

Carpe diem…

Umbilical hernia

Seeing is believing… it looks scarier than it is, but it’s quite the outie!