Don't Borrow Trouble, for Trouble Will Find You Easy Enough

While I was in Baltimore, my daughter did her Muay Thai endurance round against an instructor. He was tough on her. She fell twice.

She also broke her big toe.

Well, that's not strictly true, for we didn't know if she broke her toe. She hobbled around on a buddy taped, black and purple, swollen foot until I returned home Sunday and then, breaking down in tears Sunday night, asked me to take her to the doctor. I think it may have been something to do with the incredibly ugly shoes she was forced to wear (they were the only ones that fit over the swelling), but, you know, fashion is important when you are in high school.

So we went today, and there's nothing like taking a full size teen with boobs and uber large hoop earrings to the waiting room filled with babies at their very.first.checkup. I mean, fresh from the oven cuties. And I looked. And I watched. And I remembered.

Remembered when I couldn't put my jeans on and wore sweats - in one of many rotating shades - for months. Remembered when I worried about my diaper bag matching my purse - and what I'd need to pack in said diaper bag. And how many times I'd arrive somewhere with a diaper bag full of wet cloth diapers.

When I clipped paper thin fingernails and cut paper thin skin. I cried more than they did. When I worried that he wouldn't sleep, she would NEVER talk, and heaven forbid I mentioned going on the potty. When I carried extra pacifiers, sippy cups, rattles and socks with me. When I worried that the headband wouldn't stay on, the socks didn't fit inside the impossibly small size 0 Nikes, and what do you mean, Aunt Sally didn't wash her hands before she held the baby?

As I sat in that waiting room, with my gum popping teenager, the one wearing a spaghetti strap camisole (gotta love public school dress code after YEARS of Catholic school), and watched her conjugate Spanish 3 verbs onto vocab cards while she grooved to her iPod and texted her friends - I realized how much time I'd wasted when they were little.

Worried about teething and hair clips, Thomas the Tank fetishes and imaginary friends. Worried about organic baby food over homemade over jarred, was pasta sauce and homemade bread enough of a dinner or would he starve, and was she forever scarred when she saw something she shouldn't have.

I wanted to go to those impossibly young new mommies, with their teeny tiny bundles of preciousness, and whisper, Stop. Just stop. The mom across who bickered with her sister as to the necessity of a blanket on the baby in the exceptionally warm waiting room. The dad who wouldn't take the baby out of the car seat carrier "so as not to spoil her". The mom who put the hat ON the baby and the grandma who took it OFF, over and over.

I wanted to stand up and tell them, "Enjoy it, for I didn't. And now it's gone. And I wouldn't trade what I have now - full sized (or mostly) human beings, capable of conversation and laughs, both rational and irrational thought, keeping a room a trash heap and drinking a gallon of milk a day- for all the money in the world - but what you have is so precious and so fleeting. And no, you won't sleep - but you won't die of it, even though you may feel like it. None of the little stuff matters. Just hold your infants and enjoy them, squeeze them and remember this."

But I'm pretty sure that if I had said it, they wouldn't have heard.

I didn't.

Comments

[KG]

Well it hasn't fallen on deaf ears here. While #1 just turned 13, #4 just turned 9.... months. I can always use a reminder that my plans I had JUST laid out in my head for tomorrow a.m.-
dishes, laundry,organize desk,vacuum,dust
would be best laid by the wayside & replaced with
nursery rhymes, peek-a-boo & tinker toys (for the 3 yr old, lest anyone thinks I meant for the baby)

so THANK YOU once again for helping me refocus on what is REALLY important.

Hope your Crisis dujour @ chez masses
blows over double time!

how is the broken toe anyway?

[KG]

ps
Welcome back-
you were missed!

[EmilyD]

Thank you for the reminder!

I have three year old twins and a baby due at the end of April ... and while you're in the midst of it all, it's often hard to remember to ENJOY IT for what it is. Because this time never comes back this way again.

[Carrie]

We have five kids and there is a gap between our oldest and next child of 8 years. My oldest is 16 and the next four are 8, 5, 2, and 14 weeks old. This gap we had turned out to be the hugest blessing ever. I am such a different mother with the younger ones than I was with my oldest. I know completely what you are saying. It goes by so fast and really the small stuff just doesn't matter in the long run.

[Tricia]

Oh, how I so understand what you're saying here. I tried desperately to stop, to soak it all in. And even knowing it was fleeting and really making an effort to enjoy those moments, I felt as if I failed to truly do just that. I wish that we could scream to all those new mommies about savoring every second, and then give them the gift of truly understanding the implications. I can't wait for baby number two (whenever it is meant to come into existence) and hopefully, the many more miracles that follow.

And next time, I'm going to be less devastatingly hard on myself.
And worry about the inconsequential stuff much less.
And I'm going to carry my babies as much as they want to be carried.
And nurse them for as long as they want.
And let them make huge messes all day long.

And I'm going to smile and laugh a lot more, too.

[Abby]

I heard you! I have a soon to be 3 year old and a 4 month old - who I barely let out of my arms since I don't know if he is my last baby or not - so I am soaking each and every moment in to the fullest! I am also in denial about potty training...hoping that someday soon he just decides he wants to do it on his own (it is a BIG hope right now).

Hope you problem dissolves quickly and peacefully!

[Kate]

Thanks for the reminder! Would you be so kind as to repost this everyday for the next 3-5 years? Thanksomuch ;)

[Maggie]

Very well put. And dare I say (from experience) you will look back at the high school years and wonder why you were so concerned about the minutiae of that as well.

[Headless Mom]

Best post evah!

[Amy]

wah!
Just this past weekend I had to pick my beautiful 16 yo dd from an 'undate'. I think it was, she states emphatically it was NOT. But a boy picked her up from work and she then had dinner with his family and they watched a rented movie. Screams DATE to me, she says there were 'just hanging out'. yep it blips by in a NY minute..........

[Katherine]

I still have people at work who say, "How OLD is your daughter now?! WHAT?! NINE? I remember when you were pregnant!!!" Yup, people STILL remind me of that. And it seems so long ago. There was NOTHING like that feeling of holding your baby inside of you. By my third, my daughter - I knew enough to just enjoy. I would look across my dirty living room and allow myself to forget about it for just a bit so i could take my little one out to play. I was much more relaxed and savored every second. BUT... now she is nine. N-I-N-E and I wonder where it went and how it went by so fast. Yes, you new moms... ENJOY IT. I look at all of you at pickup - all you young, no wrinkles moms - thin, energetic with no battle scars yet - and I remember being that once. It DOES go by fast. Get those baby kisses and belly blows now, before they can say NO!

[Melissa - The Sisterhood of the Shrinking Jeans]

I've often thought the same thing. It really does go by too fast, and I wish I would have stopped to smell the roses a little more often.

We are just beginning our venture into teenage-dom, and ohmygoodness I'm not sure I will make it with my sanity intact. It makes those baby-years seem like a piece of cake.

[MamaCas]

*Hugs* Hope everything works out for the best.

[Gusgirl03]

I have three children, ages 3, 2 and 9 months (and beginning to think about #4).

I am slowly learning to enjoy every moment. I have friends that stress over sleeping through the night and every bite their children put in their mouths and I just want to shake them. To me this is all just a "season of life" and in a blink it will be over, so I'm trying to savor each moment as it comes.

Although I must admit, I also look forward to the next "season", too. :-)

[Nicki]

Hope whatever is going on resolves itself so you have one less thing on your plate. :)

[Nicole]

As a new mom, this is very, very good advice. I've had people tell me this, but never in a way that I could hear it.

Thank you so much!

[amie]

I am glad u have a new post up- I have been worried. Does that make me a co-dependent blogger stalker? Oh well. I have a feeling crisis of the week is education oriented. I am tired of teachers who underestimate my son , cafeteria ladies who know every unhealhty thing my kids eat, & gym teachers who worry about what type of socks my kids wear. I need summer NOW!

[Tammy]

This is a GREAT post! I wish I'd have read it when my children were little! I hope someone else will take it to heart!

Oh, and I am realizing to take this advice, even now, as they ARE teenagers. Try to overlook all the minor things and enjoy them as much as possible. If only I'd known when they were that little that pretty much everything is a minor thing! ;)

[mm]

Cool sweet post. Your preview to the post led me to think also how fast and fleeting life can be. The other day your worries were of woodpeckers. And now you are clearly ticked with people. Isn't that just how life can be? But you said it yourself: "not a marital crisis or a medical one or a family one." Those are the major things to worry about and the rest will work itself out.

[kyooty]

Keep on hugging them, :)

[Iowamom]

Welcome back and hope the drama disappears quickly. I look back on the last ten years and definitely feel like I've conciously lived them. My mother has been battling a chronic illness for the last 18 years so I have a constant reminder to live each day well. I have great memories of my three kids as babies, as toddlers, and now as school-age children. I do remember feeling frazzled but did realize "this too shall pass". I look to the heavens daily and thank our Lord for such blessed children.
Great advice for the new moms!

[MB Squared]

This is why I am quitting my job and staying at home...my oldest will be 5 years old next month and I have felt like I have missed so much. With the pending adoption of our second daughter, I feel like God is giving me a second chance.

[UKCraftySal]

What a thought-provoking post. It's so true. And I'm taking to heart Tammy's comment too: my 2 teenagers are proving challenging in so many ways, especially the 16-year-old, but there ARE things each day worth savouring. I need to be sure I don't miss them.

Fingers crossed for the crisis. My thoughts are with you.

[Liz in Seattle]

Why, oh why, do I forget to read stories to my 8YO? Thanks for the kick in the behind. :-)

[Julie]

Well said - my "baby" enters Kinder in the fall and I'm trying my very best to just.forget.about.the.stupid.little.stuff and enjoy where we are right now - no longing for what was or being anxious about what's to come. Just enjoy who we are right now.