Stop the Clock!

What is the one piece of unsolicited advice that you get most often if you are pregnant or a new mom?  For me, it was something along the lines of "Enjoy these times when your baby is little because they fly by."

I am now here to tell you that all those annoying commentators were correct.  It flies by at lightning speed.

May has been a month full of milestones in our house for my "book end" kids, Sammy and Caleb, a month that makes me want to freeze time somehow.  I just want to hold my three babies close and keep them from getting any bigger.  Scenes of life 10 years, 20 years, 30 years from now keep flashing before my eyes.  My babies will be all grown up, turned from boys into men, and they're not going to need me anymore!  If you've ever read the children's book Love You Forever (and I recommend that you do if you are a mom to boys), I envision myself as the mom driving across town in the middle of the night to climb into her grown son's room and rock him while he's asleep.  Go ahead, call me crazy, but someday, you might just know the feeling.

For starters, my oldest son Sammy turned five this month.  Five?!  Seriously, how did that happen?!  In the same week as his birthday, he also graduated from preschool.  How is it possible that I'm going to be the mother of an elementary schooler?  It seems like yesterday that he was a tiny baby, yet somehow he's already heading off to kindergarden!  Needless to say, I was a wreck last week.  I cry every year on all of my children's birthdays.  I do it to myself by playing this cheesy birthday song (see it here if you want to cry on your kids birthdays, too), and I cry buckets.  This year was different.  My son is entering a different chapter in life, and I'm not so sure I'm ready.  The tears weren't all sad, there was also joy and pride mixed in there.  Sammy is definitely not a little kid anymore, at least he'll tell you that.  As his mom, I relish in his accomplishments and take pride that I've helped him get where he is today.  And let's face it, I'm proud that I've actually kept him alive this long.
He's got his own friends that I didn't choose, and I'm already not allowed to sing or dance when they're around because I embarrass him.  He's starting to think girls are gross, and he takes his karate classes very seriously.  He's brilliant, too, much smarter than I've ever been.  He uses words like "demonstrate" and "terrified" in the correct context and can read site words and do addition problems.  But I think the biggest symbol of him shedding the preschool years and growing up into a big kid is that he's started wearing a watch.  Gone are the carefree days of preschool.  This kid suddenly has places to be!
Luckily, Sammy still wants me to kiss him and hug him

At the other end of the child line-up, my youngest son Caleb (also known around here as Sir Chunx A Lot) has suddenly shed any remaining semblance of  newborn-ness and turned into a little person.  In the span of two weeks, just shy of his six-month old birthday, he got two teeth and began sitting independently, scooting around the floor, eating solids, and waking up just once a night.  He's like a different baby than he was just a month ago, and I am so conflicted with each milestone that he reaches.  I know I can't hold him back, but sometimes I wish I could.  While I still want to snuggle him, he wants to be on the floor and on the move, scooting after every choking hazard that catches his eye (and there are a lot of them in our house, thanks to his brothers!).  When I try to nurse him, he's too busy watching his big brothers to latch on for any good length of time.  I just wish he would slow down a little because this is IT.  No more babies in our house.  I'm reminded every day of that fact as he grows, and it's killing me!  I've mentioned this in a previous blog, and I want to reiterate that I don't want any more babies, but why can't the one I have just stop growing???
Don't get me wrong.  At the same time, it's kind of nice.  Remember the four-month slump I wrote about a few months back?  Well, it seems like the fog is lifting around here.  I'm not completely, utterly exhausted anymore.  I can set the baby down, and he entertains himself (or his brothers keep him busy) for a few minutes.  I can now throw all the kids in the tub together, and then he actually goes to bed when they do and sleeps most of the night.  I'm even getting rid of a lot of the gear and baby clothing that has taken up so much room in our house for the last five years.

But at the end of the day, I'm still sad to see my baby days coming to a close.  Take it from me, moms-to-be out there.  It goes by SO fast.

Mother Load of Love Today!

My mom with Sammy and Gabriel

Happy Mother's Day to all the moms in the PregTASTIC blogosphere!
I am feeling very lovey this Mother's Day, very womanly and warm-and-fuzzy about being a mom.  Until I became a mom, I didn't really care all that much about this "Hallmark holiday."  I always sent a card and a gift to my mom, I always told her I appreciated her for giving me life, but I didn't really get it.  Honestly, did we really need a whole day dedicated to our mothers?  YES, I have realized we do.  Now Mother's Day has a whole new meaning.  I know the depths of the love my mother felt for me and my siblings growing up because I feel it for my own kids.  I understand the highs and lows of being a mom because I am living it.  I never realized before, but now I do, that I would actually treasure the craft that my preschooler worked so hard to keep secret from me.  Becoming a mother made me appreciate the efforts my own mom has made throughout my life.  She was also a stay-at-home mom until and a Navy wife just like me.  I never appreciated the hard parts of her job as a mom -  the amount of birthday cupcakes she must have made, the number of field trips she chaperoned, the loads of laundry she folded, the difficulty of parenting by herself when my Dad was on work trips, cheering us up when we were in a fight with a friend or rejected by a boy.  I understand it now, and I am grateful for it.  So I called my mother this morning and jokingly thanked her for giving birth to me, to which she replied, "Oh, it was my pleasure."

My sisters, my mom, and her beautiful sister Vivian

Here are some things I've learned from my mom:

• Put your kids to bed early and enjoy time with your husband alone.  My parents still have "wine time" every night!  It's a great way to share your day and reconnect. 

• Keep your kids busy.  Make them run out of energy before you do.  One summer, she paid us to swim laps in the pool.  I know now that a penny a lap was probably well worth her sanity.

• Natural childbirth is possible.  Mine was her fourth unmedicated birth!  She was my motivation for heading down the path of natural childbirth that I am so obsessed with.

• Make loving your kids your top priority.  We always knew we were loved, and is anything more important than that?

• Make your kids love each other, even when they don't want to.  There were four of us, and we moved around like most military families do.  We always knew we had each other, and we were always encouraged to play together and get along.   

Speaking of always loving my siblings, I have to give recognition to my two sisters Sarah and Jessica this Mother's Day.  If you are a faithful PregTASTIC listener, you may have heard them share their Ups and Downs on Episode 195.  As my big sisters, they have been my best friends and role models my whole life.  Words cannot express the bond that we share and the love I have for them.   Being pregnant together was amazing, and now we are all mothers together!  They both gave birth in the past month, and I could not be more proud of these birthing superstars!  

Sisters and parallel cousins in utero

Sarah had her daughter Sophia on April 8, two weeks before her due date.  She was indoctrinated into our Church of Ina May club because she gave birth without pain medication - that's no easy feat, especially for a first time mom!  Sarah has been "Tia" to my boys for almost five years now (they like her better than me), so I love watching her embrace motherhood.  

Jessica just had her baby girl Julia on Friday.  She planned on a homebirth and rocked it like a champion.  She had a 20-hour labor.  When I talked to her just awhile after having the baby, she told me it was the hardest 20 hours of her life, but it was well worth it.  She definitely deserves a medal or a trophy or something to reward her incredible efforts.  

I love my sisters, and I can't wait to raise our babies together!