Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Growing Joy

It's happening. Our family is growing. No, I'm not pregnant - that's for next year. But David and I are growing as parents, and our little Melissa Joy is becoming more of a little girl and less of a baby.

When I was pregnant, I dreamed more of the interaction with her than with holding a baby. From the first moment, I couldn't wait till she'd grow so we could chat. I hear some moms get sad about their kid's 1st birthday, a little nostalgic of when they were smaller, but not me. I'm SO excited she's growing. I've even laughed out of joy by myself because of it. That is in the midst of sleep deprivation and back pain for chasing a crawler. Yes, my body suffers, but I'm so ecstatic that her head looks bigger than it did yesterday that it seriously makes up for everything.

Maybe it's the fact that she understands me more, and vice versa. Or that now she can eat whatever I'm eating, and that means I don't have to splatter baby food all over both of us. Or maybe that we're closer to getting pedicures together. I try to reason my sudden giddiness when I'm by myself, but I still can't pinpoint why. But then again, it might also be that I'm finally by myself.

4 comments:

Stephanie said...

I'm somewhat different from you. I'm excited about the baby stage (even though I have zero experience with babies). I'm also excited about the young-adult stage. It's the toddler-tween stage that scares me. That's the age that really separates good parenting versus bad parenting. I want to have adult discussions with my children and talk about real life situations which can't really be done with younger children. I also want to skip that screaming in public/temper tantrum age. :(

Even though I'm having a boy, I loved daydreaming of taking my daughter to get manis and pedis together. I missed out on the mother/daughter bonding, so it would be so cool to do it on my own one day.

Anne Prado said...

I know, I'm not looking forward to the "terrible twos" either... But I'm surprised of how much fun I can have with a 9 month old. And I've never been too crazy about babies/kids, but there's something different about seeing your own little one trying to communicate with you. You'll see, it will melt your heart!

Stephanie said...

It's nice to hear you say you're not crazy about babies/kids. That's how I am, and I was fearing it would have some negative affect on my parenting skills. We were out to dinner last night when I heard some child screaming at the top of their lungs. It's totally understandable that a child would scream, but it still irked me.

Anne Prado said...

Nope, fortunatelly your babysitting skills do not affect your mothering skills - and that's because it's YOUR baby, not some strange someone else's baby! :) It's amazing the difference this makes. Like, her drool is like my own drool haha.

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