Posted by Arwen Mosher in Family on Wednesday, August 27, 2008 10:30 PM
Lisa’s post about her son hitting a milestone has me pondering the rapidity with which children grow up. It’s a cliche, I know, but when our daughter Camilla was a newborn, so fussy that every week felt like it had at least twelve days and twelve endless nights in it, we had trouble with the idea that children grow up fast. One time when we were in the middle of a many-hour cry-fest, my husband asked me plaintively, “Will she always be a baby?” My feeling was: yes, she will.
Now our little baby will be two in October and I’ve discovered that, new-parent panicking to the contrary notwithstanding, the time has flown. Camilla, who a year ago was so attached to me that she wailed every time I left her sight, will now cuddle with me only when she is very tired, and sit on my lap only if I agree to read her a story. She tells me firmly, “Do dit self!” (I’ll do it myself, Mom, thank you very much) at least a dozen times a day. My baby has disappeared.
I’m happy that in less than six months I’ll have a new tiny one to cuddle. It takes the bitter out of the bittersweet pleasure of watching Camilla grow up. I can enjoy watching her develop and not mourn her babyhood (much) because soon enough I’ll have a new baby to revel in. Meanwhile, I’m trying to enjoy the slow pace of our life with one child, because I know that if - God willing - we end up with the passel of children we’re hoping for, I’ll look back on the simplicity of these days and wish I’d enjoyed it while I had it.
Right now, I do have it. And I have my daughter, still little yet. And her sibling, tinier still. It’s a lot to enjoy, and a lot for which to be thankful!
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Filed under babies, children, time, toddlers
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I remember all too well that thought that they would never grow up. Oh, but they do—you do a great job of enjoying that sweet little girl of yours, Arwen.
I heard somewhere that, with regard to raising our little ones, “The days are long but the years are short.” How true that was with my own firstborn, also a fussy, colicky crier! She just turned 4 and my how those years have gone by quickly, even though I thought those crying days would never end. Congratulations to you and God bless!
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