“Enjoy every second.”
“It goes so fast, doesn’t it?”
“Don’t blink. You’ll miss it.”
If you had said anyone of these things to me anytime from when I fell pregnant for the first time in 2010 to about three weeks ago, I would have nodded politely while scoffing at you behind your back.
I was in the trenches. Nothing like a 3-year-old and a newborn to make you feel like sometimes life is just, well, plain hard work. Sure, there are moments of joy between the never ending mountain of laundry and the toddler tantrum. But pretty much anyone saying, “enjoy every second” was about one minute away from being handed a baby with a number 2 nappy to ‘enjoy’.
But something changed recently.
I swapped out my son’s cot quilt for a proper sized quilt on his bed and all of a sudden I was reminded that he’s a grown-up boy now.
He turned four and had a birthday party where the boys sort of did their own thing rather than being supervised by the parents.
My baby has started to sit up and looks to be about to crawl. She’s our second and final child. There are no more babies for us.
I was walking back from the park with them last weekend and my boy asked me if he could run ahead. I said yes, because nothing makes me chuckle to myself more than watching his knobbly knees and duck feet as he canters ahead on the footpath.