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Thursday, May 31, 2012

around the corner




It is a remarkable feeling when you start to see your children as separate from yourself. They venture further from you, and you notice that your lap is suddenly empty more often than full. You can take a book to the beach and read two pages without interruptions. Your children find their snacks and water bottles on their own, dry themselves off, and keep each other entertained. Three years ago, in the depths of raising a newborn, a toddler, and a preschooler, I couldn't imagine what was just around the corner: this


This freedom.


It's more than just freedom. It's the realisation that your children have a relationship with each other that will grow beyond the years that you have them with you. My girls have finally passed the at-each-others'-throats phase (for the most part) and I marvel when I hear them playing and giggling together, or cracking each other up while driving in the van.
Now I can picture them having the relationship I'd hoped for when I knew I'd have a second baby girl. 


This is the moment I've been waiting for, in many ways. Is it tinged with regret, or longing for that time when they needed me so much more? Maybe sometimes. But just a bit. I know that next summer will be different again as we get back into carting-baby-to-the-beach mode. I suspect that this time I'll have the breathing space to embrace it and really KNOW that this is the last time. I picture this new little one learning to run, if only to keep up with those older siblings who by then will have this whole sibling thing figured out.


I was mourning the fact that I won't be able to stay home with this babe as long as I did with his/her siblings when a friend reminded me that this baby will have a different kind of childhood: one with three big sibling-friends to pull him/her along by the hand into the adventures this life has to offer.


And that feels so right.

6 comments:

  1. Each baby is so different. My first three babies were 21 months apart, then my fourth came 6 years later and the fifth 4 years after that! My advice is to just embrace this time and enjoy it, it will different,but a wonderful different!

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  2. What a lucky little one to be surround by such a fabulous clan of kids and knowing Bec's family I really see that to be true... they are each others gift.
    I love love that top photo ~ melts my heart. S.

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  3. I agree with Tracey......we can worry and wonder and fret and then everything in life just unfolds and we manage.....somehow we manage with all of it. You will manage and it will be wonderful. xo

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  4. This makes me REALLY excited to see the sibling relationship unfold. And a good reminder yet again (because motherhood is full of them) of just how quickly the time passes... making memories sweeter and bringing new adventures all the time. If ever there was a lesson on being present, it is motherhood!

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  5. I know what you mean. My kids are now 12, 11, 9 and 5. It's endlessly fascinating to me to watch their relationships with each other blossom and watch them depend on each other sometimes instead of always coming to find us (their parents).

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  6. Gorgeous photos! And love the above comments, wanting to add...just wait until they start keeping secrets from you and their Dad, or planning surprises (ie breakfast in bed) without help, or running to get one of you when their sibling has fallen and broken a bone...SO many new and exciting things still to come.

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