Happy Mother’s Day to all wonderful mothers out there! I truly respect those of you who work so hard day in and day out and always seem to smile no matter what. The love of a mother is everlasting, and I am lucky enough to have two wonderful ladies in my life as proof.
My mom, Avery’s G-Ma, has always been there for me and now she’s always here for Avery. It’s obvious how much Avery loves G-Ma since every time we see her, mommy and daddy move down on the list of favorites. They even turn their backs on us!
And if we were to ask Avery for a bite of her snack, there would be no way she’d share, but for G-Ma, well…
Of course, when with her Mommy, my beautiful wife/Going Mom, I seem to get the cold shoulder too.
Geez, how do I survive as a stay-at-home dad with this kind of treatment?!
Can’t blame her, they are both beautiful and amazing women that I’m happy just to have in my life. Not just on Mother’s Day, but every day.
Mom and Kelley, I love you so much and can’t thank you enough for everything you do and all the love you give. Hope you have a wonderful Mother’s Day and many, many, MANY more to come!
I wish the same to all of you wonderful moms out there as well. Have a great day, I hope you’re celebrating with the ones you love today. I’ll be spending mine with these two girls.
We’ll see G-Ma in another week to celebrate again. Maybe we should consolidate Mother’s and Father’s Day to just one day, Parent’s Day. That sure would make things a little simpler.
You have approximately 940 weeks from when your baby is born to when they (usually) head off to college. It’s true, Google’s calculator says so…
940 might seem like a lot, but how many have you already used with your kid or kids? And as they grow older, they will be spending less time with you and more time at school and with friends. Before you know it, the weeks will become a blur and you’ll have less than 100 left to cherish. Then, you’re helping them pack to leave and saying your goodbyes.
I know this isn’t the case for every family, but for many, it is. Avery is only 9.5 months, and I get emotional just thinking of that day she leaves Going Mom and me. Although we’ve been parents for less than a year, time truly is flying by, and the little squirmy baby that easily fit in our hands, is now a bigger squirmy baby we need to firmly hold with both arms!
Skin to skin with dad!
Lately, as I’m sitting with Avery in her dark nursery and feeding her a bottle for nap time, I have been thinking more and more of how little time we really have. Getting her to actually fall asleep while holding her has become a rare event, and I usually resort to just laying her in her crib to where she’ll move all over the place until finally giving in to sleep.
But, it doesn’t seem that long ago when she’d fall asleep on the bottle, and I could hold her on my chest and just rock with her before laying her in her crib….still sleeping. Now my wife and I both look back on those days and tell each other if we are ever so lucky to have that chance again. Kelley is able to experience this more because of that damn comforting boob, but it’s still a rare occurrence.
This quickly fading part of our parenthood makes me think how excited we get about every “first” we experience with Avery, but we don’t always consider there will be a last. Even as she’s sitting on the floor crying for no reason, there will be a last time we come over to pick her up and hold her.
Soon, crawling will be a thing of the past and we won’t have to stoop so low to pick her up. And then *gasp* she’ll grow up to where picking her up and holding her is simply unacceptable!
It’s sad to think, but there will be a last time you pick up your baby.
As this thought entered my mind, many more “lasts” soon followed. I remember my delight when I fed Avery her first bottle, but now I’m thinking of how one day, I’ll be feeding her the bottle one last time. It’s bittersweet, really, because obviously that means she’s moving on to bigger and better things with food and I can’t wait to show her the wonderful assortment of fresh produce to enjoy, but still sad to think about.
Even things like diaper changes; there will a last change of diapers before she wears big girl undies. Using a swaddle for the first and last time has already happened, and I can barely remember those days. As a new parent who still has a lot of firsts to enjoy, I know there will be many lasts to endure as well.
Eventually, I will have to stop wearing her in our baby carrier which is a huge part of our lives. Every day, I make it a point to wear her and go for a walk. Luckily, the Onya can support up to 75 pounds, but I imagine I won’t be wearing her at that point! And blowing raspberries? Sadly, this is already fading fast.
Raspberries for dinner.
At least not every first will mean there’s a daunting last in the future. When she walk for the first time, I expect she’ll be walking for her entire life. When she gives the first real hug, I can only hope she’ll give us hugs for eternity. But there are also many firsts we have yet to encounter that will be accompanied by lasts.
One day, after we are through with bottles, we’ll give her a sippy cup for the first time, but then, we’ll get rid of it as she upgrades to bigger and better drink ware. Same for plates and bowls; the colorful cartoon-decorated items will eventually be used for the last time when she is ready for bigger things.
She will develop a deep love for that special toy and we’ll get used to seeing her bring it with her everywhere (update: that toy is Lamby as of January 2016), but there will be a last day she wants to carry it with her and it will be put up and forgotten.
Huggy Lamby
This is not because I have negative view about everything, rather, it allows (or at least helps) me to enjoy every day for what it is and to not take it for granted. Because once today is over, it becomes a thing of the past and will only live as a memory. Would you prefer worrying over petty things every day and letting them disturb your thoughts, or does enjoying the life around you and shrugging off the small stuff sound better?
I choose the latter, and need to remind myself of this every day as I am what some call a “worry wart”. As I spend my time with Avery, watching her learn and grow, I want to make sure to enjoy her now, just how she is in the present. Because, while she has many firsts yet to come, she also has many lasts.
Do you have grown children that have already had many “lasts”?
Wow, we made it to the end! Of my Monthly Memories posts, that is. I’ll still think of some way to record our memories, but it won’t always be on or around the 15th of each month as I have been doing to commemorate Avery officially turning a month older.
Before we start, let me just put this right here……
We’re taking advantage of her still being too young to fully grasp the concept of birthday parties by keeping it low key at home with a few friends and family. I expect we’ll have plenty of big birthday bash requests in the future, so no need to rush into those, right?
Avery, you have truly transformed in just this past month by talking so much, running all over the place, and being so playful. You’ve given Mommy and me way more than 24 memories for the month, but tradition’s sake, that’s the limit for this post. 🙂
1. Like I said, you’ve turned into a playful tot who frequently joins me in the kitchen where I am cooking meals and cleaning up my mess. But when you stand at my feet with your pretty blue eyes, I can’t help but to take a break and play a little.
2. This month you got your very own fork. And not just any for, AirFork One! 3. Mommy and Daddy took spent the weekend camping for our belated 8th Anniversary celebration (and Mommy turning 31!) while G-Ma stayed with you at our house. We enjoyed our time together, but had a dramatic return where you had us all believing your wrist or arm was severely injured. So conniving at such a young age….turns out you were just fine. 4. Mommy’s work had their annual Halloween event for families to bring their little ones trick-or-treating. We dressed you as a pumpkin (again) and you proudly walked around the place announcing “I’m a pumpkin!” Obviously, a very crazy pumpkin… 5. On Halloween, we carved our first pumpkin together as a family. You helped us take the guts (seeds) out a little, but you were more interested in eating them after I roasted the innards. 6. You walked our little loop on Halloween night to trick-or-treat where your first and only treat was an organic banana our friends kindly had set aside just for you. You wasted no time trying to eat it, and even bit into the peel before we could unwrap it for you. 7. Blue is the color of choice for you lately, and there’s no question about which plate you get for dinner. It’s the Blue Plate Special every night! You even repeat the phrase “Blue plate tonight.” well over 10 times throughout the day, just to make sure we’re clear. 8. Before your beloved blue plate dinner, you’ve also become keen on what time it is before our nightly walk and dinner; it’s smoothie time!
9. I try to make dinner interesting, but always ends up being the same thing one way or the other. One of these things is quinoa, which you surprised us by pronouncing amazingly well!
10. Another dinner time staple is goat cheese. We always have it in a certain container, and if you see it out, you’ll repeat the words goat cheese and more until we finally say you had enough. At this point, you’ve learned to say “See you tomorrow, goat cheese” in the cutest way possible. It puts a smile on Mommy and Daddy’s face each time.
11. The shin I hurt when climbing up to save you on the slide last month is taking forever to heal. Over the time I’ve had it, you learned about kissing boo boos and now you kiss everyone’s boo boo multiple times a day. I even caught you pulling your foot to your mouth to kiss your own boo boo on your toe!
12. Kissing your own feet takes some major flexibility. Must be from doing yoga with Mommy. 13. Your eagerness to help us out with everything you do is cute, but not always helpful. One thing, “helping” with wrapping up the vacuum cord, is one such thing. 14. You actually do help me when putting up your cloth diapers after they are dry. I will ask for a certain color and you grab it from the drying rack to hand to me. 15. On the topic of diapers, you play what seems like a rapid fire session when I first pull them out of the wash and hang them to dry. As I hang each one, I can see your face crinkling trying to quickly call out the color I have before moving to the next one. 16. The blue plate might be your preference for dinner, but for breakfast, you have taken a liking to your purple plate. Banana and pumpkin seeds are the staples on your plate, and once you’re done, you will bring your plate over to me to put in the sink. You learn so fast! 17. After Mommy gives you your nightly bath, I’ve been setting your new friend, Lamby, up on the couch waiting for you to come and get her for bedtime. I’ll be cleaning the dishes and see your naked, wide-grinned self run up to grab Lamby and run back to your room to get ready for bed. It’s cute to hear you giggle with joy as you see Lamby sitting there.
18. My injured shoulder finally bothered me enough to go to a chiropractor which resulted in having to make multiple weekly visits for therapy. Luckily, I found a great husband and wife practice with 4 kids of their own who know a thing or two. They have you setup to watch Dinosaur Train on the kindle as my shoulder gets worked on. You also enjoy the play kitchen area and take it seriously, just like Daddy. 19. I thought I’d take advantage of the better-than-normal weather and run with you to a playground just 2 miles away. Of course the wind picked up, but we made it. And we found out you’re still not a fan of being above solid ground just like when on our friends’ trampoline. 20. Besides not wanting to walk on platforms, you absolutely love the slide part. That’s why we were too excited to wait for your birthday to give you one of your gifts; an indoor slide! It’s nothing fancy, but you are loving it! 21. With your increased playfulness, you’ve begun to initiate foot fights with me randomly throughout the day. Sometimes I’m even holding a knife to chop food, but it doesn’t deter you.
22. We love, well, everything about you, but how you pick up so quickly on new words and letters. I’ve been playing the show Super Why for you while we have lunch and we’ll try and guess the Super Words in each episode. Mommy and I would love to take all the credit for your increased word knowledge, but that show really has helped you learn.
23. What we can take credit for is your knowledge of good food. You say cottage cheese when you see my container in the fridge, goat cheese when, well, a lot, and even name the colored jar of NuttZo with amazingly great pronunciation for a 2 year old.
24. It’s probably apparent that Lamby is your current Bestie. She’s become part of our nightly reading and goodnight kisses routine to where you INSIST everyone kisses Lamby after reading the nighttime book, and she even has to kiss my boo boo some nights!
Watching how much you change every day is so bittersweet, Avery, but you make our little family of 3 complete and fill us with joy. So much so we just want to squeeze you all the time! Maybe too much…
Happy Birthday, dear, thanks for giving us so much joy! We look forward to so many more birthdays and good times as a family!
An at-home dad on a mission to keep it real when it comes to food, fun, and raising a healthy, happy family.
