I remember the first time I felt it.\u00a0 Jaia was 3 months old and we put her in the Jolly Jumper for the first time.\u00a0 After a minute or two of hanging there, she\u00a0began to jump and bounce\u00a0about with a look of ‘what the hell?’ written across her face.\u00a0 Her legs were suddenly useful and she had no idea what to do with them.\u00a0 And for the first time in her life, she seemed independent.\u00a0 She didn’t need Dan or I to hold her or move her – she was doing all on her very own.<\/p>\n
As I sat across the room on the couch, I remember feeling a ridiculous sadness at the sight in front of me.\u00a0 My baby was growing up and wouldn’t need me someday.\u00a0 Yes, she was only 3 months old at the time, but it felt real to me.\u00a0 I felt a pang in my heart.\u00a0\u00a0My little girl\u00a0needed me a little less than she had the day before.\u00a0 I was ready, then and there, to make a deal with the devil to slow time right down to a crawl.\u00a0 I was just not ready for this.<\/p>\n
I’ve had that same feeling a few more times over the last 26 months.\u00a0 Hiding behind my moments of pure joy that Jaia had learned a new skill was the sadness that she wasn’t so much my baby anymore.\u00a0 She learned to walk, and didn’t need me to hold onto her anymore.\u00a0 She learned to come down the stairs and no longer reaches out for me to help her.\u00a0 She knows what she likes.\u00a0 She dresses herself.\u00a0 She’s completely potty trained and has been for months.\u00a0 At night, instead of begging and crying for me to stay until she falls asleep, she rolls over when she is tired, says, “goodnight, mama” and then asks me to leave the door open a little as I leave.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Just a few days ago we were sitting on the couch together and she grabbed my copy of New Moon<\/em> (yes, that’s right, I’m reading it) started flipping the pages and began to sing the alphabet.\u00a0 The entire alphabet.\u00a0 A to Z.\u00a0\u00a0With a little, “now I know my A B Cs, next time won’t you sing with me” at the end.\u00a0 Jaw dropped.\u00a0 I had no idea she knew that (and was obviously not responsible for it).\u00a0 But it was amazing –\u00a0and just another example of how fast she’s growing up before our eyes.<\/p>\n Since before Jaia was born, wise moms have been telling me to never wish away a stage.\u00a0 I promised myself that I would listen to this advice and try breathe in these moments, every one, even if they were sometimes trying, tiring and frustrating – a certain looooong night of no sleep and hours of screaming comes to mind.\u00a0 And I have.\u00a0 I think about how great it’ll be when she can climb into her own carseat and do up the buckles (a symbol to one mom that her little one was, in fact, not so little anymore), but I’m going to miss so much of the tiny Jaia I love now when she outgrows her.\u00a0<\/p>\n Each new stage brings with it a great sense of amazement\u00a0of this little person I created.\u00a0 Each milestone reminds me of where she going and how far she’s come in such a short time.\u00a0 I want her to continue to grow and learn and become independent and strong and an individual, but I’m just not sure that I’ll ever really get over her not needing her mama as much anymore.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I remember the first time I felt it.\u00a0 Jaia was 3 months old and we put her in the Jolly Jumper for the first time.\u00a0 After a minute or two of hanging there, she\u00a0began to jump and bounce\u00a0about with a look of ‘what the hell?’ written across her face.\u00a0 Her legs were suddenly useful and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[26,29],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/forgetful.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1236"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/forgetful.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/forgetful.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/forgetful.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/forgetful.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1236"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/forgetful.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1236\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/forgetful.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/forgetful.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/forgetful.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}