Stop! Time

Do you ever feel like time is going on fast forward? I was driving Bryson to his 2 week appointment yesterday after picking up Alianna from her first day of school and had this profound moment. I vividly remembered taking Alianna to the 2 week appointment. She had been spitting up like crazy ( found out it was severe reflux) and had NOT slept the night before. My mom ( who was a god send) had gone back home and ArJay had gone back to work the week before and I remember thinking there was no way I could do this on my own. When did moms take showers? or go to the grocery store? I can't do any of those things with an infant. HA! Just last week, I happily dropped the kids and ArJay at swim lessons and went to the grocery store with " just a baby". Best time I've ever had at the grocery store. Anyways, I was contemplating how fast time goes and how much my perspective has changed in the nearly 5 years I've been a mother and I thought about this song from Big! the musical and pulled it up on itunes: 

Two months old, he looks up at you
How his smile melts your heart
You want to say, "Stop, time"
Don't move on
Even as you watch that look is gone
Then he's two, such a little man
So alive and so smart
Again you say, "Stop, time"
Stay just this way
But the future comes and he can't stay
Nobody warns you of this parent's paradox
You want your kid to change and grow
But when he does, another child you've just begun to know
Leaves forever
Birthdays fly - 7, 8, 9, 10
Every kid he becomes you clutch and say "Stop, time"
Hold this one fast
But it's not supposed to last
And that time has come and passed
For he's growing
And he has to go


KILL.ME.NOW. Not a good song to listen to while driving. I nearly had to pull over my eyes were so blurred with tears Yeah, remember how I HAVE a 2 week old baby and a 2 year old son?  Horrid timing Magdelyn.

So I'm sitting there thinking how amazing my children are and how blessed I am to be their mother and I felt this overwhelming sense of ..guilt. See here's the thing, I have always wanted to be a stay at home mom. I always said, I only get 5 uninterrupted years with them at home, I'm going to enjoy them. And I have enjoyed them, really. But it has also been unbelievably hard, lonely, frustrating, tiring( what I wouldn't do for a nap!) and humbling to be a stay at home mom. Yes I said lonely. That's the one that really shocked me, that you can be surrounded by screaming banshee children and feel alone. Maybe it's just ArJay's crazy work schedule, but I don't think so. I think a lot of stay at home moms feel this way because I have seen that same look in their eyes when we have playgroups. The I'd-give-up-chocolate-for-a-year-to-have-an-adult-conversation-that-doesn't revolve-around-baby-births-or-my-children's-poop look. That's the real reason we have play groups folks, it's not for our children, sometimes it's for our own sanity.  So I'm thinking of how many times I have counted down hours and minutes until naptime or playgroup or any dang activity that gets us out of the house and out from under each other in the last 5 years, and I felt shamed. Like I am the worst, most selfish mother because I didn't enjoy every second of having my daughter home and now she's "leaving me". (I had a melt down and stated how she was leaving and Arjay looked at me like I was crazy and said" she's not going to college or getting married" Men!) And I mourned the loss of my sweet little baby girl and, like that song says, the child I had just begun to know was gone forever. And I desperately wanted to just freeze time. To go home and say " OK, that's it. nobody is allowed to grow for 3 more years. I need to enjoy you more" Because maybe I missed something, and I can't miss anymore.

But I realized something else, I'm not perfect. I never well be ( yes ArJay I said it!) So I'm never going to be the perfect mom. But I'm still Alianna's perfect mom, and Kendall's, and Bryson's. Nobody knows or loves those kids like I do. Nobody knows exactly how to get them to sleep, or speaks Kendall-ese half as fluently as I do, or knows just what to say to calm them down or heal her "hurt heart", or what Bryson's cries mean, or what Alianna's favorite princess is or Kendall's favorite game. Nobody else gets the sweet " I love you Mommy" or a chubby little toddler hand as you cross tehs treet or a sweet little girl randomly coming out of the play room and wanting a "cubddle" and sweet slobbery toddler kisses. So maybe I didn't miss it and maybe I'm not the worst mom in the history of Moms. Maybe it's ok if we don't stop time, but I'd be ok with pausing it for a few weeks..or months so I can snuggle these cute little cheeks