Everything changes

Since I mainly just sit on my rear right now, I can afford more blogging time. (Look! I said something positive!).

I've been thinking about my baby girls lately, not a new concept really, but I've begun to see them in a new light. The younger me saw them as, perhaps, something that was happening TO me. The things that they did and said and terrorized....they were happenings in MY life. Over the past year though, that view has started to change.

As they get bigger, they don't seem to need you quite as much as their mother, or at least not in the same ways they used to. They go potty by themselves, they grab their own after school snacks, they can play on their own, they don't swallow small objects anymore...(that often), they are less likely to fall and hit their head on the coffee table, they can bathe themselves. But they also do crazy stuff like graduate from preschool, move on to the 2nd grade, have sleepovers, friends, and their own drama. They have true likes and dislikes and their own opinions too (God forbid). They have bad things happen to them sometimes and they don't understand, and it brings me back to the times in my life that I've felt the same way. When a friend disses you for the first time, or when they just don't want to play with you anymore. You remember these things. Because, they are a part of YOUR life.

I've come to realize, my girls have lives! Mkay, that sounded like a statement by Captain Obvious himself. I don't even know if I'm making sense, so I'll just keep on trucking.

I've noticed my role changing a bit, from the facilitator of everything that they do, say, eat, breathe, and look at...to a stepping stone of sorts, someone to listen to them when they bounce things off of me, someone to make sure they have the things they need that day for school, someone to remind them things they already know. I revel in the moments now when I teach them something totally new and novel, because most things have been heard or seen before. I seem to be the padding for their fall, or the net around the trampoline. I'm not always needed, but I'm always there...just in case. How did this happen?

This change in roles has been mostly pleasant actually. I don't mind it at all. It allows me to see the progress they've made into awesome little people with their own lives and their own memories. It gives me confidence that I've taught them good things when I watch them make decisions that I would've chosen for them too, and when they treat another person just like I'd have wanted them to. And when I see things they choose that I don't care for much, I've still got the opportunity to step in afterward and say....maybe next time we should try....

I know that opportunity is fleeting. Because someday they'll be teenagers and won't give a flying crap what I say. Not only that, but they'll want to do the opposite just cuz. That's right..just cuz.

The biggest way this transformation has changed me is seen in how I treat them, with my words and actions and looks. When I look at them, I'm overwhelmed by love & empathy. Why? Because life is HARD. It totally sucks sometimes. And if I'm the one being a total lunatic in their lives right now, I'm just adding to their distress. It doesn't mean I'm throwing discipline out the window. I hold them to the same standards I do myself. And I'm not looking to be their best friend (yet). I just am more apt to open my arms wide to them when a choice they've made has gone badly, or when they "should've known better". I can comfort them in that instead of rubbing it in their little faces. I just seem to feel what their feeling lately. And it reminds me, growing up can be really hard to do.

Blah blah blah...I rarely make sense. But I guess the bottom line is...that things change, and this particular change feels right. I'm okay stepping back a little bit. This stage their in, it makes me step back, willing or not. When you drop them off on the curb at school and they just disappear inside those huge, heavy doors with their over sized backpack on their tiny shoulders....you are bound to realize: it's out of your hands. That realization is just downright painful. You know what makes it better for me? Being there when they open the door and drop all their crap right inside the door so no one else can walk through, and I say, "HI BABY!!! How was your day?" And they tell me.

I'll take that. Because I know, everything changes.

Plans

It's funny sometimes...when you make plans.

Like, I plan on going to the park today.

I plan on eating salad for lunch.

I plan on shaving my legs.

And after it rains out your park date,  and you stop on the way home for a slice of Casey's pizza, and you skip the shower all together for the season finale of Desperate Housewives, you realize....sometimes the best laid plans go awry.


I planned on taking six weeks off of work for maternity leave. I planned on having my baby in August. I planned on working up until my due date.


But then, on Saturday night, I started contracting and cramping, and it just didn't go away. And after a night in the hospital and lots of drugs, I'm doing better and I'm back home. But the ultrasound said the baby was bigger than expected, that he looked like he was about 3 weeks further along than we thought he was. I can't walk across the living room without contracting, and it makes me wonder what will happen to my awesome plans. My precious precious plans.


It's all fine and good to say you can't work anymore, except when you are the one who supplies the health insurance to your family.


It's all fine and good to take time off of work, if you hadn't been sick the fall before and used up a few weeks of that already.


Even though I don't know what will happen...will the baby come early? Will I make it to my due date? Can I work anymore? Will I be put on bedrest? Who will take care of the girls? How will we pay for this and that? Will I keep my job? What about insurance?....I suppose I just have to trust. God knows how things should work out, and I just have to trust in that.

I know there's nothing more important than the health of this baby. 


So meanwhile, I'm just hanging out, waiting to see how things might work out. Because you know what they say about the best laid plans.....they often go awry.

My oh my

I get tired of being pregnant sometimes. You know, when my hips hurt and I waddle....or my thighs are bigger than ever and rub together, or when even maternity clothes don't seem to fit quite right. I have trouble sleeping, and I get hungry and eat bad things. I get moody and sad and anxious. But hey, pregnancy gives us the very best gift in the world....a new person! So it's worth it, right?! As I'm patiently awaiting these last two months to fly by so we can meet our precious genius baby, I have found myself starting to think of things I'll do when I'm not pregnant anymore.

However, my list is not that involved....


1. Sleep on my stomach...if I get to sleep
2. Go for a run...if I'm able to run
3. Take Excedrin....so I can play with my kids when I didn't get the proper amount of caffeine for the day.

Now, contrast the above list with this real life posting by me....a long, long 8 years ago, written by my nineteen year old self while pregnant with Olivia. 

Here are some goals for my life after olivia shows up:

go on a diet!!!! i am going to smoke a whole pack of
cloves, drink two beers (one from each hand), and go
on a rollercoaster, jump into a pool, sleep on my
stomach, take a hot bath, run into the door and not
worry about it, wear my old clothes, go running, take
a shot with a friend who turned 21,  wear highheeled
shoes, wrestle and not worry about my belly, fall on
the ground really hard and just get up, go down a
waterslide, paint my own toenails instead of steve
doing it, put on my shoes while standing up, wear a
short shirt, wear a normal sized bra, drink coffee
that is fully caffinated, lots of mountain dew, go
rollerblading with no fear of falling over backwards,
put on my socks without sitting on the floor, tread
water and not dive face down into the water from the
weight of my belly, wear sexy underwear again, stop
sleeping on a heating pad, stop buying chips and
cookies and junior mints, zip up my coat, play rugby,
sit in a hottub, go fourwheeling, snowmobiling, and
iceskating, go out with my friends and not worry about
the smoke, wear a swimsuit and best of all....

play with my tiny baby girl that is perfect since i
decided to give up all these things.

My oh my, how things change. First of all, it drives me INSANE that I didn't use capital letters and proper punctuation. Having said that....I can also honestly say that: I am now adamantly against smoking anything, I don't drink (except for an occasional wine cooler when I'm feeling super classy), I wouldn't jump in a pool if my life depended on it...although I may do it to save my kid if the weather cooperates...it's been years since I had a friend who was 21 and it's been years since I've taken a shot, I don't wear high heels even when I'm not pregnant, I'd rather die than wear a short shirt, and "sexy" underwear sits in my unmentionables drawer largely untouched. What exactly IS a "normal sized bra"? And even if I went to a bar, you can't smoke there anyway. I'd break every bone in my body if I tried to play rugby again, and wearing a swim suit is an absolute last resort in all situations.

Phew!



My oh my, how things change. :)

However, there are some similarities between the 19 year old me and the 28 year old me...I still love Mt. Dew, coffee, and junior mints. And I love my babies more than life itself.

Other than that....wow.

I wish I could talk to that girl again :) I wonder what I'd say.