I feel that I am just navigating a complicated web of knots lately much like an unraveled ball of yarn. Some strings are loose and easy and others have inexplicably wound themselves into the tightest of knots.
I think it has a lot to do with number four. More than ever, watching her grow up and move through the babyhood stages has made it crystal clear what I am missing and what I will always be missing. When I went through this stage with number one I was so overjoyed just to have a living baby it really didn't matter as much whether she was a boy or girl and though her babyhood was bittersweet it was also elating in the celebrations of each little milestone. With number four I know what's coming and I know what has passed. The surprises aren't what they are with a first living child. There is still joy and celebration but there is also a level of comfort and knowledge. I've done this three times before so the little things don't send me into a tailspin of doubt and worry like they used to. There's an ease to raising a fourth child and that ease has paved the way for my mind to wander down a different path. A path on which I have at least one little boy, though hopefully both, in my life.
It probably doesn't help that Eli's birthday is just two months away. Last year at this time I was pregnant and all of my focus went into getting this little girl here safe and sound. I focused on a little person wriggling in my belly. She didn't have a face, a personality, a smile, a laugh or a cry. I couldn't make her happy or scare her or soothe her bad times away. This year that is most of what I find myself doing and it's just too much sometimes. I wonder how things will feel once his birthday is passed. As my four year old says, "One, two, three, wait and see".
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