Motherhood is oriented to firsts.
Our baby’s first smile,
first step,
first word.
After the baby is born,
some firsts seem to take forever.
First smile, first tooth,
first time mom can have an uninterrupted conversation
or read a book and remember the contents.
The only hint that it’s
not all about firsts
comes from older women.
They fuss over our darling babies with delight.
When they do,
our traitorous babies make liars of us:
cooing back as if they don’t have colic and diaper rash
and the incessant ability to dominate our lives.
These older women speak
in some kind of code
known only to those
whose babies are long grown up.
(Maybe a secret society.)
The way they operate is so
consistent that clearly
it’s a ritual of some kind.
There’s always a pause
in their baby chortling.
They look us in the eye
to say some version
of the very same thing.
“They’re little for such a short time.” Or,
“These years go by so fast.” Or,
“Enjoy every moment.”
They want us to know something they didn’t know,
that no one really knows fully
until their babies are grown
Despite the exhaustion and sleepless nights
and the loss of one’s free time
to the cutest loud smelly creature ever,
the earliest years
are packed with heart-filling wonder.
When our babies grow up
we see
motherhood is also
filled with lasts.
The last time we’ll change
a diaper is worthy of a
celebration, true.
There’s also a last
time holding a little
hand to cross a street,
the last tucking into bed,
the last book read aloud,
the last
of many
blessedly ordinary
expressions of love
once enfolded
into daily
life with a child.
Such “lasts” line the
way toward our child’s
adulthood. They
remind us to cherish
every moment.
As a mother who is now shorter
(okay, much shorter) than each of her four children,
I claim the right to coo over babies
and tell new mothers in all seriousness,
“these years go by so fast.”
I haven’t been invited into the secret society yet.
I hope there’s not a dress code.
I’m NOT wearing any damn red hat.
*
*
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Creative Commons image credits
Baby hand http://www.flickr.com/photos/andrewmalone/1114928353/
Woman and baby picasaweb.google.com/…/9NX5sOZc8XwaveIURkiqGw
Eye flickr.com/photos/43927576@N00/531269809
Woman and baby flickr.com/photos/jm_photos/2057212651/sizes/z/in/photostream/
Woman and baby flickr.com/photos/iandeth/1949150981/sizes/l/in/photostream/
Angel girl flickr.com/photos/tianderson/286211866/
Baby flickr.com/photos/50824868@N00/197011571
Little girl flickr.com/photos/40379737@N00/3812002166/
Boys in street flickr.com/photos/mcsimon/1266570816/
Reading aloud flickr.com/photos/j_regan/8197734711/sizes/c/in/photostream/
Boy in tree http://www.flickr.com/photos/takile/5809992860/sizes/z/in/photostream/
Laura Grace Weldon 
No red hat OR purple, here, either. Lovely post—thanks.
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What a sweet post! I aim to cherish these moments with my two small children.
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Aww…lovely post and even though I am not a Mom/Mum I worked at home when both my sons were babies etc and used to enjoy doing the whole nappy deal( even delivered the youngest in the lounge room..about 8ft away form where I am typing this) and this brought me back to those moments 🙂
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I love this Laura! And to think that you have personally experienced so many of my firsts (and lasts) on that sweet little Drive named Martin 🙂 I can only hope to recreate such fondness for my little guy.
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This was a beautiful reminder not to take anything for granted. It made me feel like how I felt when I watched the play Our Town. I try not to have too many moments where I’d look back on my time with my kids and wish I had truly lived in the moment.
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Perfect and timely. I literally just cried to myself about this topic last week. My “baby” turns 4 next month and my daughter just turned 7. I love them oodles but I miss my daughter’s toddler face. I miss my son as an infant. Those beings are still with me, in my house, and I see them daily. But last week it hit me that their younger selves are GONE. I miss them, my kids as babies, as toddlers. I ache to see their younger selves just one more time. I mourn their absence and cried for my loss. I’m sure I will mourn for them in this stage in a few years when they move into preteens and beyond. I get now why older women are baby crazy…I’m fast joining their ranks.
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