I love motherhood, in a way that words just cannot describe, but it is emotionally exhausting! Its amazing how often something so little can make me cry so often. (I know I am a crier already...the movie Shrek always does me in!)
The tears started day 1...errr day zero. After 12 hours of labor, a dozen or so little decels, a lost heart rate, an internal monitor and a giant decel into the 60's (for those that dont know, thats bad!) the doctor said I needed a c-section to get the baby out NOW. I cried, not because I needed surgery, but because I knew my wonderful little girl, who had yet to grace us with her presence wasnt doing well. Score 1 for Little Cashew for scaring me to tears.
30 min later, the good tears came as I got to hold my beautiful, wonderful baby girl for the first time.
And many good tears have followed...the first time she looked at me and gave me a big wide mouthed smile, her first giggle, and second giggle....all of her giggles. Every time she gives a joyful squeal tears come to my eyes, its really the sound of pure joy. Watching her sleep on me, and that look of total innocence and hope makes me get misty. I think all told, with those things, she gets a good 3 or more teary/crying mommy moments out of me a day. Wonderful joyful tears that I feel so fortunate to have.
All of those tears, the tears of joy moments, I was prepared for. What I wasn't prepared for was all of the grieving tears...let me explain...
It took a few weeks for this to happen...and the diapers were first. We brought her home in newborn sized diapers (some babies skip this size all together and go straight to size 1's)...after a few weeks we were coming to the end of a box and Walnut suggested we just put her in the size 1's (since we had an unopened box in her room and she met the weight requirements). I was not pleased with this..."but she still fits into the newborns" "shes so tiny" "the 1's will be too big" I pleaded, but Walnut reasoned with me that it was 10pm, we were out of newborns and we had 1's. So we put a size 1 on her, and it fit.
I cried. Yes thats right, I cried that my little newborn baby was not wearing newborn diapers any more...her cute little teenie tiny diapers were replaced with these big bulky monstrosities with elmo smiling back at me. I actually hurt inside...I was grieving the loss of the newborn diapers...or rather the little munchkin who wore the newborn diapers.
Then came the clothes...Little Cashew is a skinny string bean (considering she is a baby with baby fat) just like Walnut, so she didn't out grown clothes really quickly unless they had closed feet on them. When we brought Little Cashew home from the hospital we didn't have any "newborn" sized clothes...its not that we weren't prepared, just that some babies don't even fit in them to start out with. So my mom went out and bought her 3 newborn sleepers asap. Right around the time Little Cashew turned 1 month old, we noticed that she couldn't straighten her legs in her newborn onesies, she was too tall and had to move on to the 0-3month onesies. Again, I cried...no more pink bunny onesie, no more little elephant onesie, no more dotted onesie....I felt ridiculous, but I was saddened at the loss of the cute little clothes.
Then she rolled over this week (Shes only done it once, and I am pretty sure she has forgotten how to do it since..) And I cried...one because she is amazing and was smiling at me and I was so proud of her....she had been trying so hard. And 2 because she is growing up so so fast! Slow down little girl, please!!
And I had to laugh because today we moved up to size 2 diapers, I once again got teary eyed. And a few days ago I found our emergency stash of 5 newborn diapers (apparently hidden too well, because we forgot about them). And I got all nostalgic for the diapers!!! And the crazier part is that I cannot manage to throw them away...and even crazier yet. I took 1 out of the pile and stashed it away. This way if Walnut throws them away (like I said I would, but haven't been able to) I'll still have 1 teenie tiny diaper left.
Don't get me wrong, I know there are many amazing and wonderful parts of Little Cashew for me to enjoy and cherish at every stage. But this grieving of the loss of these little things is exhausting! And yet I cant help but grieve them because I have loved every second with her so much, and have wanted to stretch every minute I have with her into years, but they slip by so quickly and are gone.
Little Cashew has twice today napped on me, cuddled up like she is in the picture below, like she did all the time during her first few weeks...it was wonderful to hold my growing little 3 month old in her size 2 diapers...and yup...there were a few tears of joy
Little Cashew, I'll ask one last time, please slow down little girl...
Trying to get out of bed after a loooooong night
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