Too Fast Too Furious

A guaranteed way to get a mom to punch you (or at least strongly consider it) is to say something along the lines of "Enjoy this time - it goes by so quickly." While I've found early childhood to be downright exhausting and exhilarating and I heard that line over and over and over and over, it wasn't any help whatsoever. It didn't make time slow down or go faster or make me NOT wish that the 2am wakings would end. 

For whatever reason, maybe the PPD, maybe leaving my job and feeling weird about it, maybe feeling the need to somehow stay plugged in to music therapy and eventually "get back into it" I did, however, find myself looking for every opportunity to get A to sleep faster or more efficiently so that I could have time to go do whatever I wanted to. That little taste of pseudo-freedom was so intoxicating that while rocking her to sleep I would think, "Now would be a great time to just crash out in the rocking chair with her. Okay well...but there's all this other stuff I need to do, (insert dishes-research-writing-musicking-facebooking(VOMIT)-laundry-cleaning-sweeping-mopping-catchingupwithpeople-phonecalls-sewing-cooking-never-ending)" and I would justify to myself that I am so talented and my brain needs to keep working or I have a master's degree and was I really cut out for this SAHM thing and should she do a mother's day out and on and on and on...

...and then one day she moved from her crib to a mattress on the floor and she didn't want to be rocked any more, and it broke me to pieces. I am in fact tearing up as I type this. Not saying I didn't EVER not fall asleep with her in my arms, I just really honestly thought that it WOULD last. I didn't have any previous experience to know how abruptly it would end.

I recently completed a worksheet from this book that had the statement, "Imagine yourself at the end of your life looking back...what do you regret?" or something like that. Now, we all know the people who are like, "I live life with no regrets!" and for the most part I have to call bullshit. If you're going through life skipping through KNOWING that every decision you make is absolutely the best one for you right then, then you've stopped learning. I have the feeling that the rest of us are consistently saying to ourselves, "oops. That sucked. I'll try better next time." To my surprise I found myself journaling that I would probably wish that I had been kinder to some people, and that I would have reveled in the gloriousness that was the present moment a little bit more. Would have enjoyed the gifts that I was given to the fullest.

Kinda like the song by The Weepies - "Please Speak Well of Me" which I have included for your open-weeping pleasure:

The part that always gets me is -

Looking back now
I only wish I had been kinder
Did I ever know love, did I ever know love?
And could I have been blinder?

Okay so the whole song gets me every time. 

I have no idea what they're actually talking about in this song - maybe a romantic relationship or whatever but I tend to find little bits of songs and know they were meant just for me. I mean, if I could fall in love with my unborn kid and be brought to tears because of a Ke$ha song, anything is possible.

So yeah. The other night I was watching How I Met Your Mother and Alyson Hannigan took me apart with the most beautiful scene in the world. (fast forward to 14:32) I said out loud to the hubs, "Oh my word someone gets it. And just said it out loud. Oh my God." And then I cried. Apparently a whole lot of other mamas did the same thing. I don't still feel like that, but I remember clearly thinking just that several times in the first year. The shock of having something so beautiful and vulnerable completely dependent upon you is downright frightening, and it was moving to be validated like that. Even though it was through a tv show.

The world indeed moves on and the days are long and the years are short, but all I can do right now is snuggle up and snooze with my daughter in the middle of the day. I have no control over the decisions I made in the past, but I can bliss-out in the sweetness of the present, to do better next time. And then give myself grace. And you know what? Today she wouldn't nap, and because she had requested being wrapped up in a blanket a couple days ago I asked, "Do you want me to wrap you up?" She quit screaming right there and said, "YES!" and so I swaddled her up and started bouncing and shushing her like when she was itty bitty. And she passed out. So maybe those little moments don't ever go away. I just want to pay closer attention.