Two weeks ago, my son—my baby boy—turned two.
Next month, my daughter will turn four.
My babies are gone.
I remember always being excited about my birthday when I was a child, but now I wonder how my mom felt on that day.
Don’t get me wrong—I am absolutely grateful for the chance to see my children grow another year older.
Many mamás don’t get that chance.
But this year, especially, I’m feeling all sorts of grief because I feel like I now have to start the process of letting them go.
Like every birthday, they’ll need me just a little bit less.
It’s weird for me to miss them being infants because the infant stage was horrible.
My daughter didn’t sleep through the night until she turned two… and by that point, her baby brother was only weeks old.
My husband and I haven’t had a good night of sleep in almost four years.
My body is a wreck because I’m always too tired to exercise or cook regularly.
I’m sure I now have high cholesterol, my clothes don’t fit, and I haven’t lost any of the baby weight.
My home is always a mess.
A few months ago, I was so excited to finally get rid of all the “baby clutter.”
A friend of mine was having a baby boy, so I gave her everything—the rocker, the swing, the car seat, bottle sterilizer, breast pump, clothes, etc.—and I was so happy to finally get some of my space back.
But then I cried when I saw all of the stuff in my vehicle.
And I cried the entire way to my friend’s house.
I still have to quickly walk past the infant clothes section at certain stores because seeing the onesies makes me tear up.
I miss my babies.
I miss their cute onesies.
I miss rocking my daughter to sleep as she sat on my big pregnant belly.
About seven or eight years ago, when my nephew was an infant, he’d fall asleep in his crib while listening to a specific set of lullabies that my mom had playing on his swing.
I’d watch him sleep while listening to those songs, and I felt the call to motherhood deep in my bones.
I was certain in those moments that I’d have a son someday.
When my son was born, we received a swing as a gift—the one with the music my nephew fell asleep to.
I spent so much time just watching my son rock back and forth to his music, and I still have those lullabies recorded on my phone (though I can’t listen to them because I’ll cry, lol).
I can’t believe that in an instant, I went from longing to become a mother… to having toddlers.
I don’t know how that happened.
They say that “the days are long, but the years are short.”
This is so true with kids.
I blinked, and now my son doesn’t need me to pick him up as much as he used to.
I blinked, and my daughter learned how to put on her shoes.
Time is a thief, and I can’t stop it.
Just like I miss my babies, I know that I’ll eventually miss my toddlers.
Then I’ll miss my tweens, and so on…
But for now, I will accept that this is part of motherhood—
missing who my children were,
and celebrating who they are becoming.
