i think i may have nursed my daughter for the final time last night. it wasn't exactly what i expected. i hoped for a moment of calm and quiet time, in which she and i gazed at each other and mourned the end of this cherished time. in reality, she kept flinging her foot up and kicking me in the face with a mischievous smile across her sweet toddler face. she bit me twice with her single tooth, the indication that there are more teeth on the way. i nearly teared up as she flung her body across the couch in search of the snack that finn was now protecting with every ounce of his three-year-old body.
this morning, i looked down at my body in the shower. parts that should be curvy are now depressingly flat. other parts that i have always hoped would be flat are now a little flabby. this is the body that gave two amazing and healthy children life and sustained them in their first years. i wonder if this child-making purpose of my body is over. i feel slightly depressed at the idea of not being pregnant again, yet at the exact same moment, a sense of relief rushes over me.
these two children have become my life. i spend the entirety of my day completing endless tasks to keep them happy and well-fed and loved and growing and alive. i pour everything i can into them, except for the few moments i allow myself to feel so overwhelmed that i can't imagine answering another one of finn's questions or changing another stinky diaper. those moments pass quickly, as i hear giggling coming from the other room and rush around the corner to see them playing so sweetly together, finn teaching her the rules to his made up games that i'll never understand. i stand there for a minute, hoping they cherish the amazing gift of having a sibling for the rest of their lives.
so what do we do now? my baby is now a toddler. it's hard to fathom really. some days feel painfully long and that bedtime can't come soon enough. recently, that has been most days as ada has been testing her limits with everything. yet somehow, the year has passed by in the blink of my eye and my baby has grown up. the last three years have flown by at an even greater rate. as if it were yesterday, i remember holding my one newborn baby in the hospital, wondering what the rest of our lives would be like. now suddenly, i have a three-year-old who i am certain will be much smarter than me in a very short time and a one-year-old who is already far more adventurous and rebellious than i ever was.
i wonder if we could handle a third. i can't help but try to plan the next ten years of my life. i don't know why i think i can. this year has been so exhausting and so exciting and so every emotion known to a mother, to a woman. i know that if i let it, the next ten years will fly by far too fast. so today, today i'll pull my children close and try to preserve these moments in my mind. moments where they both still want to be in my arms and cuddled and loved so intensely i can't fathom loving them anymore than today.
tonight, the exhaustion will set in again, and i'll collapse into my bed so in need of the next eight hours of quiet and of rest. then tomorrow, i'll wake up refreshed and renewed and fall even more madly in love with these two amazing, ever-growing children. i'll have many more instances where i feel overwhelmed and inadequate, but then i'll remind once again to stay in the moment. they are growing too quickly and i can't bear to miss a single second.
