I've pretty much decided that we are not allowed to go in public anymore. Ever since I started my blog and began posting a lot of pictures here, people just recognize us way too much. Ha. Or maybe it's because EVERY time we go somewhere to have fun, someone (or all of us) end up getting sick.
It's been 4 weeks since Theo and I had the stomach virus from hell. And now Theo has been fighting a junky cough for over a week. Apparently he was also fighting a sore throat, which would explain a recent eating strike, because last night I started developing one that could pretty much be summed up in three words: Swallowing. Razor. Blades. Both boys have had weird, persistent rashes. Dexter has been getting up a lot at night, and when I say "a lot," I mean 9 times. NINE times in 8 hours. I wasn't home that night but I felt terrible, knowing that my husband was suffering alone while I was at work. I pretty much started my day at 1:58am on Saturday though, so I think that made up for it. I can't wait to get these kids feeling better again.
Dexter decided around Thursday and Friday of last week that now would be a good time to start crawling. To that, I would say: Dexter. Stop it. This is not a good time to start crawling. I thought I asked you to wait until the Christmas decorations were tucked back in their boxes in January. Hell, they're not even untucked from their boxes yet!
It's weird. With Theo, I wanted him to hit every milestone early or right on time and got myself into a panic at times if he wasn't doing just what every other kid his age was doing. Or what every book or website said he should be doing. With Dexter, I just want him to slow down. Aside from the emotional issues attached to my baby not wanting to stay a baby (again? gah.), there are the logistical issues. He's so much smaller at six months than Theo was at nine, when he started crawling. He has less physical control of himself, you know what I mean? I remember Theo falling on his face and busting his lip while he was learning to crawl. And he was THREE whole months older than Dexter is now. I dunno, it's probably a dumb thing to worry or think about, but I do.
Mainly, I just want him to be my snuggly little baby forever. It's no mystery why women have one baby after another. I guess they think eventually one of them might actually stay a baby forever. Despite the nightmarish sleep issues we're dealing with right now, babies are so precious. Dexter was playing with something he shouldn't last night, so I took it away from him, expecting him to cry. He didn't. He didn't even know the difference. He was happy moving on to another toy. I am not looking forward to the fits and tantrums. Babies are so sweet and cuddly. We're still rocking Dexter to sleep, which I suspect is part of the problem that we're having with night wakings - he doesn't know how to go back to sleep on his own when he wakes up between sleep cycles. But as soon as we start putting him to bed on his own, that's the end of it. That's the end of rocking him to sleep. Or at least it was with Theo. And once it was done, there was nothing I wanted more than to steal those moments back.
Ugh.
There's a constant battle betwen the good and the bad. I just keep telling myself, it's just a phase...it's just a phase...it's just a phase...it won't last forever. And that's good and bad. Bad because this time in our lives is moving at warp speed.
All my life, I dreamed of my wedding day. All my life, I envisioned what it would be like to be pregnant and to cuddle that sweet newborn baby. These things are glamorized to little girls, you know? No one really prepares you for the heartburn, the hemorrhoids, or the fact that these things come and go in the blink of an eye. My wedding lasted 15 minutes. And in retrospect, it doesn't feel like my pregnancies lasted much longer than that. Or my babies' itty bitty stages.
I know they are still little. We are having the time of our lives watching them grow and learn. I do love having little kids and I absolutely believe that a few years from now, 20 years from now, and 50 years from now, I will look back in disbelief at how far from this time in my life I've gotten.
The point is, part of me feels like sobbing because it's over. I got pregnant with Theo in June of 2009 and by May of 2011, in a flash, I was done having babies. Done feeling them kick inside of me. Done staring at them for the first time and memorizing every curve of their fresh little bodies. It is such a blur now. So, yes. I understand why women want to keep re-living those moments by having another baby. While that part of my life is over, at the same time, I know that we've just begun and the time of our lives lies ahead of us.
~C~
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