This is a picture of Hope and me. She's just a few days old in the NICU and I'm sleep deprived and a bit shell shocked. Malia and I were looking through old pictures of the babies in our home and I was struck by this one. Though tired and bedraggled, I look so YOUNG!!!! So very, very, very young!!!!! And I was~26.The first time I entered this parenting adventure I had been married for 5 years, out of college for 5 years, and was in my mid-twenties. This time...I'm nearly 10 years older, will have been married for 14 years this summer and college is a slur of distant memories!!! I'm feeling so very old to be a mommy again. I know that there are many out there that think their 30's are the perfect time to enter motherhood. I'm not so sure...I just keep thinking about how tired I already am, how spent my body already feels, how many kids I already have, how much more "high risk" I am now.
When this baby goes to kindergarten I'll be 40. I'll have a 4th grader, a 6th grader and a high school freshman all on this first day of school. I was once the young kindergarten mom. Now I'll be that "older, experienced mom" that people slip side glances at and whisper about. Now I have friends in their 40's and they truly rock them. They are strong, fit, confident, beautiful, grounded and fabulous women. I'm thankful to know them and to be counted among their friends. I just think that might not be my fate. I think my experience might be more of a beaten down, haggard, dazed and confused person looking for scraps of adult communication and unable to complete sentences.
Why do I think that? I will have spent the last 14 years of my life at this point at home with a dependent preschooler hanging around my ankles. I will be a member of an elementary school PTA for 15 years. I will have a child at every school at one point...college, high school, middle school and elementary school-thankfully there will be no preschooler at that point! Yikes.
So here I am diving into the world of sleepless nights, 'round the clock nursing, strollers, car seats on the arm, and sleep training. The first time I anticipated all of this with wide eyed wonder and unbridled excitement. Now I know too much. I'm still excited to meet this little person that will round out and complete our family, but the sense of awe and wonder is missing a bit. Really, ignorance was such bliss.
5 comments:
You do look fresh! You are the age I am now :) I had Coleson at 24!
ah, I dont know about that!! I think there is something to be said for each phase. What a blessing that you get to be able to experience motherhood from all angles.
.....Just be sure to embrace those "younger" kindergarten mommies--I'll be one of them! ;)
(and DO be sure to sleep train-early! If you get the itch to let things slide because it's your "baby", write me and I'll set you back straight! haha! ;) )
love ya-you're going to be great as ever!!
You are going to be GREAT! What's funny is I saw the picture of this post and thought you had the baby. So really to all of us you haven't aged a bit! You still look great.
You look better now, pregnant with #4 than you did after Hope was born. You have never been more beautiful. This baby will bring you unimaginable joy and draw you closer to God. I know....because I saw the embryo in the sky. I love you!
Mom
I can hardly wait to see what little Hanson is going to do and be. Waiting this 40 weeks is just the beginning of anticipation of this life you are going to begin nuturing. Think of all the mistakes you have made and how much more wisdom you can give #4. All of us moms who have said, "I wish I could have...or I now know not to...." You get to live it. I am thrilled for you AND I agree with your mom that you look Beautiful. Love your faithful cheerleader, Christina
Life is humbling. I love it. I love it. I love it. We are just wobbly spirits, so needy, so fragile. We're dumb, too. Sheep. Yahoo for sheep.
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