Growing

Em is 18 months today.  It hit me when I woke up…he is one and a half.  Made me lock myself in the bathroom for a quick tear.  Honestly I never thought it would go this fast.  I truely feel like I gave birth yesterday.  But then…you think back and reflect.  Wow.  He has transformed from this screaming, wriggly, little being to a boy.

I remember clear as day the hours after he was born.  We had a long talk after everyone had left the room.  It was around 2 am…I was still hopped up on drugs and feeling weepy.  I told him I was scared.  I let him know I did not know how to change a diaper or swaddle.  I admitted to my newborn child that I did not know how to be a mom.  I sat awake most of that night in between tears and elation…kind of a mix of happiness and fear.  I swore I was going to break him…or worse let him grow up with a mom who did not know how to manage everything.  That night I started his book/diary where I tell him what we did and how we felt that day.  I am now on my third book. 

Eighteen months later I can change a dipe while wrestling the cream from my toddler.   I carry him thrown over my shoulder with a pile of laundry in my other arm.  I did not break him.    It amazes me how he has helped me grow.  I feel that once he was born, that’s when I truely found what I was meant for.  Kind of cool, no??

Em and I have a unique relationship.  We talk alot…really we will talk for hours in my window seat.  I think this is why he talks so much   That first night I was so scared.  I freaked, thinking that I should know this stuff…were women not wired with how to care for a baby.  But he taught me well.  Em may be the one who is aging, but I am maturing.  Over the past eighteen months my baby learned to crawl and then walk, he babbled and now chats and makes sense, he is now his own being.  Over the past eighteen months I leanred to love someone more than I could ever know, I learned to nuture, I learned compassion.
This morning I did have a nice little cry…I hate for him to grow so fast.  We celebrated tonight with a big cake.  He grinned and gave big chocolate kisses.  We have both gone through so much and have so much further to go.  Hopefully I won’t cry at every milestone

“A baby will make love stronger, days shorter, nights longer, bankroll smaller, home happier, clothes shabbier, the past forgotten, and the future worth living for”