I’ve had a lot of last times already.
The last time I heard that newborn baby cry, you know the one you hear in the grocery store and say to yourself, that must be a brand new baby, was forever ago.
The last time I nursed a baby seems like another lifetime.
The last time I rocked one of my kids to sleep in the glider has come and gone.
The last time I watched a kid smear yogurt all over her face in the high chair was years ago.
I was thinking today about how the last time happens without warning.
There is no THIS IS THE LAST CHANCE YOU ARE GOING TO HAVE TO DO OR SEE THIS siren that goes off.
You don’t get a heads up to really appreciate the last time of those phases that are temporary.
The last time happens when you probably aren’t even paying attention and then you don’t realize it until a couple days or weeks or months later.
My youngest starts kindergarten in less than five months.
There are a lot of lasts that are going to happen in the next 150 days.
Some of them I’ll be prepared for. Sort of.
The last day of preschool. I don’t know how I’ll survive that one, but at least I know it’s coming.
The last time it’s just me and Number 7 after everyone else goes to school.
Ugh.
I’m really going to cry on that one.
These lasts with her are going to be the hardest, because at least with the other kids I knew there was one more baby who’d give me a chance to relive those times.
So I’ve been thinking about this a lot in the last few days.
I’ve been thinking about the lasts that you aren’t prepared for. The things that in the moment make you want to rip your hair out, but in hindsight make you want to kick yourself for taking them for granted.
Like the word Mommy.
I hear the word Mommy approximately every fourteen seconds. The constant Mommies can easily drive me insane. But my older kids have already moved onto Mom.
Today could be the last day one of the kids calls me Mommy.
So rather than exhaling heavily when I hear it for the 12,000th time tonight, I’m going to smile. Every time.
There is always a kid near me. Touching me. Sitting on me. Standing in front of me. Pulling on my jacket.
But today could be the last time one of the kids wants to sit on my lap. Or willingly give me a hug even if his friends are around to see it.
So today, I will soak up the times the kids want to be (annoyingly) close to me.
Today could be the last day the kids want me to sing them a song at bed time.
Rather than sigh and tell them to hurry up and pick a song tonight, I’ll let them take their time. Maybe I’ll even let them have two songs.
Today could be the last time my daughter wants to hold my hand in the parking lot. It could be the last time she will sit in the front of the shopping cart. It could be the last day she can’t say her R’s properly. It could be the last day she wants her blankie. It could be the last day she sucks her thumb or wants to read The Book With No Pictures. It could be the last day I can pick her up without permanently injuring my lower back. It could be the last day she asks for a sippy cup. It could be the last day she wants me to brush her hair.
Okay. Scratch that one. She never wants me to brush her hair.
But it could be the last time I push her in a stroller. It could be the last time she wants to play with the big Legos or Play-doh. It could be the last time she puts on a princess dress or makes me “dinner” out of fake plastic hot dogs and cookies and french fries.
And so I’m going to do my best to appreciate all these potential lasts. All the things I tune out and don’t really pay attention to. And even all those things that annoy the crap out of me.
Because when the day comes that those things are gone, they won’t be so annoying.
They’ll just be a distant memory.
Aw I truly love this. Just found your blog recently. I had a second child at an older age (which I never thought would happen). So the idea of lasts is really meaningful to me. Thanks for such a lovely piece.
Wow! This really hit a chord for me! I have six children and I had them all really really close together. I was blown away at out much work it all was at first and just prayed for some time to myself, a time when I didn’t have to get or do something for someone else and a time when the “mommy!” Wouldn’t be heard every 18 seconds. Well that time has come. My youngest began school this past fall and I am by myself now. I too miss the lunches made of fake plastic food, I miss shopping with my littlest one….just the two of us. I miss them doing all of those things that I thought would never end. I hated being pregnant (although I did it many times! Lol), I hated nursing (sitting for such long periods of time like that when there was just so much else to do used to annoy me) and I hated having to pretend the park was fun for me too! Now I just wish I had the foresight back then to know that I should have enjoyed it because it will never ever ever happen again. On the positive side I have realized that “the last time” will come for things and I’ve started to take a breath and enjoy it all. Great great reminder! Thank you! And hopefully your article will remind other mommies to enjoy it all too because as much as we wish it away when it’s happening we will indeed miss it when it’s gone!! You’re awesome!! Thanks for all the great things you share!
It’s interesting to think about what we’ll miss most later on, especially the things that are hard or annoying or seemingly mundane now.
My daughter is almost 18 months old and sometimes I pretend that I’ve come back to the current moment from the future to relive it. Like I imagine myself looking at her when she’s 18 and I’ll be thinking back to when I would wrap her up in her towel after her bath and she would rest her head on my shoulder as I carried her to her room. Sounds cheesy when I type it, but it seems to help soak it in. I feel like there should be other sections in baby books besides the “firsts.” Like if your baby was breastfed, how did they show you they wanted to nurse as they got older? I don’t want to forget that she used to rub her face on my shirt and now she pats my chest. I need to write these things down!
So true! I wrote a similar post lately discussing this. The firsts get all the attention, but it’s the lasts that are so poignant and slippery.