Friday, March 23, 2018

The memories of those first five years of parenthood...


I'm not sure how many times this dining room table has been lapped...

Hundreds? Thousands?

I cannot even fathom a figure...

I could remember being on my hands and knees, crawling besides my little girl, when she first learned how to get herself moving. We would race around this table and she would crack me up by crawling under the table, to come out to the other side quicker than me... I can still hear her baby giggle echoing around my head, like it just happened yesterday...

Then, she had this little radio flyer tricycle that she would pedal so fast, that I could never get a picture without it blurring...

Countless big wheel rides and tag races...

And the memory of my son running in his walker, while my daughter chased him in the cozy coupe...

Then, the joint big wheel chases and the big kid bikes, and the roller skating, and all the twirls, and all the skips...

This floor still has the original streaks that date back to that first lap...

When I sit on my couch and stare off into this dining room, I'm immediately transported back to a time of utter chaos and noise. My brain willingly leaps backwards and the images come flooding in. I hesitantly accept them and mentally flip through each one, pausing to smell the air and feel the feels...

My heart breaks open, piece by piece, and I'm left relishing in a time that I thought would never end...

A time when life seemed to pull me in so many different directions, I swore I'd tear apart. A time in which I was needed by everyone, but so exhausted to love it...

Those first 5 years grab you like a bear. They hold down your weak body, while you're scrambling to stand. But instead of helping you back up, they keep kicking your legs out from underneath you...

Then one day, you open your eyes, and they're gone...

And you have this lull in the air. It's a somber moment of revelation, like you're mourning a passing. However, you're still holding tightly onto those past memories -white knuckling them, through your days... 

Of course you move forward, but you can't help but be stunned by how quickly all this time is passing.

The ironic part is, when you look back upon your past memories, you don't remember the sleepless nights, or the colicky hours. You don't remember being so tired that you could cry at the drop of a dime... You only remember the best parts. The little voices who called you mama. Or, clung onto your every word, like you were speaking a sermon. 

I love having moments of reflection like these. They help me parent forward. They make me appreciate the little things and even the annoying things... 

They slow me down and force me to appreciate the now... 

Because the now, will eventually just be another memory in which I relish in. 

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