#dontblink toobigtoofast idemandabenjaminbutton

[morethanjustmybodyback]

Do they make a ‘Benjamin’ button?

Sometime during this past summer, I realized that ever too quickly, a season in my life was coming to a close- a season I always knew would be short��but some days of it felt so long I was totally stunned to discover, that in the blink of an eye, it was almost over.  

5 years ago in August my life changed forever. And it just did again..I haven’t written a blog post in about 4 years…this is not a coincidence.  Kids start being mobile and I don’t know how other moms out there do it but i wasn’t blogging anything, because then there would be a child banging on my laptop. I also started out my pregnancy both enrolled in my first semester of graduate school and one day into adopting a 75 lb. pitt bull with separation issues (neither of these things were planned to coincide with pregnancy…but something I’ve learned in the past 4 years, once sperm hits egg you can pretty much throw the word ‘plan’ out of your vocabulary totally unless you’re referring to the (inevitable every mommy has it and if you say you don’t you’re a liar) plotting of your fantasy escape.  But I digress.  

I think the shock and realization of this ‘changing of seasons’ was compounded when about 4 days ago I got a phone call telling me that my child had been taken off the wait list for our town’s free PreSchool. This meant that (less than 7 days before the start of school) we were going from our beautiful. cozy, around the corner, we’ve been there for two years nursery school’s ‘4 year old Kindergarten Readiness Program’, to…school.  Big boy school.  I’m not going to lie.  The honest first thought I had when this woman informed me the (truly) amazing news that we had been chosen off the wait listed for this great TUITION FREE program where my child would be able to get the same exact educational goals met without paying tuition commiserate to my car payment was, “NO!!! I’M NOT READY!!!! IT IS TOO FAST!”

And I’m not ready.  And it is too fast.  From before I was even pregnant, our plan was: ‘stay home with the baby until he’s in school”.  I fixed my eyes on the purpose and (refused to) looked anywhere else. But now, he’s going to school.  An elementary school.  With a backpack that is bigger than he is, but he said it looked like space so of course I got him whatever one he wanted since I was suppressing inner mommy sobs after the meet and greet with his teacher at the school with the big kid desks and chairs. 

That time…that ‘stay home with the baby’ time…it’s now closer to the end than even the middle.  In the blink of an eye, the most precious days of my life are in the twilight of their hours, and that ‘baby’ walked away tall and strong long ago.  And I never even noticed.  Maybe I was looking under the couch for a special Lightening McQueen- no the OTHER one exactly like that one!, or maybe I was doing laundry or hiding in the bathroom wishing for a moment of silence but I missed the in between getting ready part where you wear mid level clothes and no jacket and arrived smack dab in the middle of a Queen Elsa caliber winter where a handsome boy stands chatting away, where my baby once cooed and lit up when I entered a room. 

My heart is so full of emotions that burst and overflow at will these last few days…*JOY!!* at having had not only the miraculous blessing of this time in the first place; but *GRATITUDE!* for the even more miraculous gift of “knowing” this time would be finite (and I say “knowing” because NOTHING can truly prepare you for the speed with which the time passes) , and not only are they limited, but there are far less of them in a lifetime than any other kind. *THANKFUL* You showed up. *THANKFUL* You paid attention.  *THANKFUL* You made it fun. *THANKFUL* You treasured it. *THANKFUL* You documented it- in various forms; written, photo, embedded into your heart, your mind, written across your very core, and etched into your soul….and it’s over *ACHE* *PAIN* I can see the end clearly marked. *ACHE* *ACHE* *PAIN* *PAIN* *CURIOSITY*.  I don’t think I have ever experienced anything as truly as bittersweet as the realization that while my time with my baby is forever over *PAIN* *PAIN*, I knew before they ever started that that best days of my life were coming, and that they would be fleeting.  

These aren’t the best days of our children’s lives; they’re the best days of ours.  We get the enormous gift of having them all to ourselves, of watching their lives unfold, experiencing everything with them for the very first time…                 From not being able to put them down, to not being able to catch them, we are, all the while watching.  Watching our child become the purest form of who they essentially are; before the other voices come, the teachers, the peers, anything outside your protective bubble of “Mommy approved” influences comes into play, in the days their teacher spends more hours with them than you do.  We get to see this beautiful creature evolve from the infant who stared so intently into your eyes and you wondered what they were thinking into this little person who walks along life with you all day every day narrating it all from their slightly shorter stature.  We get to notice the tiniest change in ability or skill, yet are still totally shocked and delighted at the big leaps in development.  I think that’s a trend I’ve noticed in my journey so far in this thing called parenting, a lot of times Mommy has so many small details to make sure get taken care of, she misses what is coming up right in front of her.  And from breastfeeding on demand, to purposely inching away from him slowly in the living room but not TOO FAR so he would both be able to form security in his own independent playing and also at the same time still see me and know he was free to explore in safety (Master’s Degree? While raising a baby? No potential for overthinking whatsoever)- every action of my life for the past 4 years geared toward helping my most precious miracle grow into his own little person…kept me distracted of the fact that….he went ahead and did.

So many questions come up for me now, as a woman, a wife, a mother, a possessor of aforementioned title of higher education, but right now, as the last days of this beautiful season called ‘baby’ disappear through my fingers like sand through the hourglass…I’m allowing a momentary inner mommy lament.  While I steal as many snuggles as he will let me and soak up every word and thought and eyelash, inside, the Mommy of my baby is dying.  Tomorrow, the mother of the new kid here will be born.

When we brought home the backpack and put all his school supplies *ACHE* into it, I said, “try it on for Daddy!”, and he said, “No Mommy, it’s too big for me”.  Of course I said, “No baby, it’s perfect”.  But inside, my heart whispered, “it is.  It is too big for both of us”…