Four Years

At this time four years ago I was in a hospital, snuggled up with my five hour old baby girl. She showed up unexpectedly three full weeks early. I was lying in bed at home around eight in the morning, and all of a sudden it was like I was peeing everywhere. Without my doing it. Needless to say, my brain was all what the f***. As it turns out, roughly 10% of women have their water break without any sign of labor whatsoever. I was one those women! So we headed to my OBGYN, who confirmed yup, your water broke, and I got checked into the hospital.

Contractions didn’t show up until the afternoon, and at 1:22am on December 18th, my little miss was born! My memories/experience of birth are actually all good! I mean yeah, pain, but overall, nothing feeling like it was so horrific I couldn’t do it again. My hubs end of things however, not so much. I won’t get into the gory details but suffice to stay I kind of kept bleeding and didn’t stop. And apparently it was worrisome. I thank the amazing hospital team for not cluing me in a bit, as I had no idea this was happening and was in total joy land with my newborn.

Just born!

Fun side story: We opted not to find out the sex of our baby, so when she was born I had no idea if she was a girl or a boy. The staff was preoccupied with that whole bleeding thing, so no one told me. I finally remember screaming, “Oh yeah, what is it, what is it?!” Nobody had even checked in all the commotion! So they had to unwrap her all to just to let me know – it was a beautiful baby girl. 🙂

I remember being amazed at how tiny she was. That a living breathing human could be so small. When she started walking, it looked so silly because she was still so miniature! Like a living doll, just wandering around.

My tiny girl! Also, we soon learned that there really is no ‘gender neutral’ colors haha. Babies are so androgynous, that unless they are head to toe pink, there is no way to immediately identify ‘female’.

Today, she is four. And a little firecracker. She amazes me constantly, with things she can do, words and phrases she says. She’s just such an intelligent little being. It’s amazing to think that I created her. That she started out as just a teeny tiny little gummy bear shaped blob, and has grown and flourished into such an amazing little person.

Seeing how she has changed over the years amazes me. And makes me a bit sad. Every parenting cliche about time flying once you have kids is so true. And sometimes I have serious mom guilt about it. As a stay at home mom, I am with my child nearly 24/7. Which I really do, truly adore. It’s the only career I’ve ever wanted, and I wouldn’t change it for the world. But there are days where I snap at her when I shouldn’t, or yell despite all efforts to keep it together. Some days I get tired of playing pretend, or playing Pet Shop adventures. And I understand that’s normal. But then I remember that all too soon will come a time where she doesn’t want me around her 24/7, where she doesn’t want me to play with her anymore. And that can be a heartbreaking thought.

But, it also helps me keep things in perspective, and enjoy the time I have with her fully. Do I expect to be perfect? No. There will still be days where the last thing I want to do is play another round of princess tea party. But those days are few, and far between. For now, I’ll stick to embracing the little moments when I can. Relish the times she asks to snuggle in my lap, and melt with love when she randomly says, “Hey Mom? I love you.”, completely out of the blue.

Happy Birthday, my little wonder. 🙂