Time Warp

Lots of our friends are starting school today and tomorrow, and I'm sitting here having a cry about it.

I mean, it really was JUST YESTERDAY when they were born.  It was just yesterday that I wanted to hit old women in the store who said, "Enjoy it, it goes by so fast!" because I had a baby and a toddler and I hadn't slept in literal years, and now I'm the one telling Megan and her friends, who all have new babies, "It goes by so fast!"

Megan met her friend Shadle here as a halfway point for a playdate on Monday.  Kate is 3 months old and Kinsley is 7 months old.  Megan and Shadle were talking about swaddling and sleep routines and how to get the babies to go to sleep on their own (and it is, honestly, great in a lot of ways when that happens).  Even though I had told myself for a week prior to the playdate not to be that mom, I found myself saying, "You know, I was rocking Jack just a couple months ago and I realized how huge he has gotten.  He barely fits on my lap anymore.  His legs stick out on one side and his head on the other.  My arms get tired holding him.  But I realized that it won't be long before it's HIS 7th birthday, and I am never going to regret the minutes and hours I spent rocking him.  Just let them be babies!  Don't rush them to the next thing."

I had to actually get up and take the kids outside because I knew I was being obnoxious.

But from this side of it...  You can't see when you're in it how precious those hours of rocking will be, but they are.  It won't be long before they don't need you, before they make you walk 10 feet away from them in the mall, before they make you drop them off a block away from school so no one will see the goodbye kiss you make them give you.  When you're a new parent and you're sleep deprived and unsure of what you're doing, just trying to keep this tiny person alive until they can tell you what the heck they want it's impossible to fully appreciate how precious that time is - when they're innocent and the world hasn't made them cranky and hormonal, when they think that Mom and Dad are the center of the universe.  I can see it from here.  I wish I could go back and tell myself 7 years ago to CHILL, to ENJOY it more, to not rush them from milestone to milestone, to just let them be babies, and toddlers, and preschoolers.

Because before you know it, that school bus is going to carry your baby away, and you're going to be that obnoxious mom at the store saying, "it goes by so fast," to some poor sleep deprived new mom.

I hope she doesn't deck you.