So, today is my son's 2nd birthday. If you're a parent you understand that feeling of "I can't believe how fast the past ___ years have gone by". Before becoming a parent, I always thought that was silly, but now I understand what it means. So much happens at the beginning of life. You learn so much so quickly and the growth rate is incredible. It's hard to believe my 7 lb 12 ounce, 21 inches long baby is now pushing 30 lbs and who knows how tall (we haven't been to the doctor in a while, but we go next week, so I'll update you:) in only 2 short years! He went from screaming about everything and never sleeping, to... well, still screaming alot and not always sleeping great, but atleast now his head doesn't flop around and he can feed himself! I know, not too encouraging for those soon-to-someday-be parents, but such is life.
I'm sure only mothers do this, but I have caught myself all day today looking at the clock and thinking back to what was going on at this particular time 2 years ago. I'm sure I'll still be doing this when he turns 30. It's like every minute of that day is ingrained in your mind. Well, the bad stuff is kind of a blur, which is a good thing because otherwise families would only consist of one child. :) But I'm sure I'll always remember that my doctor broke my water at 8am (I was induced), they started pitocin at 10am (my own contractions weren't doing much), I got my epidural at noon (praise the Lord!), I started pushing at 5:30pm and he was born at 6:30. By the way for those of you not real familiar with labor and delivery "stuff", pushing for an hour may seem like an eternity, but trust me, you take breaks in there so it really wasn't that bad and didn't seem like an hour.
Now, I have to be honest here (hey, if you can't be honest with your bloggy friends, who can you be honest with?) :). I was not one of those moms who instantly fell in love with her child and felt this overwhelming bond. I did cry (mostly because I was glad it was over with and also because I couldn't believe this little alien was actually my child), but the bonding part takes awhile, atleast it did for me. Of course I loved him, I mean he is my first baby, but it wasn't as if some light shone down from heaven on him and God spoke to me. (Although some moms want you to think that happens.) It was just a very overwhelming experience. To go from being a wife and having a good time, to being a mom and having responsibilities is a pretty big deal, so it took awhile for it to set in.
I can honestly say that overall my labor and delivery experience was relatively easy. I'm sure my husband has a different perspective, but this was his first time in a hospital room with a pregnant woman in labor, so he would have been horrified regardless. He occasionally reminds me about the time I threw up, almost passed out, Garrett's heart rate dropping, me needing an oxygen mask, etc, etc, in order to prevent me from wanting another baby. Which, I'm not ready for another one yet, but he can't talk me out of wanting 2 kids. That's something we've already agreed on, so it's a done deal. I just need some more time for Garrett to grow up a little before visiting "newborn land" again. Garrett hit "terrible 2's" a few months early, but I can honestly say that it's better than the first 3 months of his life. Newborn babies are sooo tough. Atleast mine was. They cry a lot and you have no idea what they're crying about because they can't express themselves AT ALL. Just think, what if you had a headache or gas pains, or hunger, or whatever and you weren't able to take care of yourself or express these needs to someone else. It's tough trying to figure this stuff out as a parent. Mix in raging hormones, no sleep, and minimal help from other people and you've got yourself some exciting days in our household when a newborn is around. Now, I do want to say that our church was awesome about bringing meals that first week we were home, my mom, dad, and sister did a great job getting our house ready for us (my mom even organized my kitchen cabinets!) and groceries bought, and my inlaws were here for a week as well. But eventually all of that stops and you're still here at home with a new baby still pretty much clueless as to what's going on. Now, I may be painting a somewhat bleak picture here, but I do want to share the fact that I was also dealing with post partum depression. Unfortunately, I didn't get help because I wasn't really sure what was wrong with me. I just knew I didn't really want to mess with Garrett much, I cried all the time for no reason, and I desperately needed to get out of the house every chance I could so I could see that the world was still "out there". Sometimes you just feel so isolated when you're in this kind of situation. I remember a conversation I had with a girl from my SS class (Kristi!). I think Garrett was maybe 10 days old and I remember her helping me to put it in perspective and knowing that she had felt a lot of the same things I was feeling, it really helped.
Honestly, looking back, I think I had a relatively good baby (he's a very active 2 year old now...) but he started sleeping through the night around 8 weeks old and he didn't fuss a whole lot (though from 6-8 in the evenings he would just cry non stop and there wasn't anything we could do about it).
Now Garrett is 2. He runs and jumps all over the house. He just recently learned how to do a somersault (I have no idea where, he didn't learn from me!), he climbs on EVERYTHING and gets into everything as well. But he's a lot of fun and very funny. He already shows to have a great imagination and is going to be pretty mechanical, like Daddy. He loves to sing and dance too. He really wants to sing along with songs, but only picks up a word here and there. He loves to try to spell his name (a, e, t, i... Garrett!!-that's basically what he says) and points out a few letters that he does know. He also loves animal sounds and would rather tell you what the animals says than what the animal is called. I'm very thankful that he doesn't seem to be the bully type (I'll find out for sure in the next few weeks because he is starting Mother's Day Out at church next Tuesday), so far he's never bitten or hit another child with the intention of being mean. He seems to be more the type that will allow himself to get beat up on even though he's plenty big enough to stand up for himself. Something else that's also like Keith, you have to push him a lot before he'll react. He loves cars (and the movie Cars), blocks, balls, the sandbox, outside, Curious George, Veggie Tales, giving kisses, and a whole lot of other things.
He's my baby but now he's 2. I'm so thankful that I have him and I'm able to stay at home with him. We are just so blessed.
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