Toddler-hood

It's like the official,

"Your baby is a toddler now= end baby stage"

It's huge.

 Mandi asked me how I felt about Grant turning one and in that moment I said, "Oh, no big deal, I'm excited" and it's true I am but wow it's difficult to describe how you can be excited and feel overwhelmed with...what exactly?

 Feeling like something is gone. It's like you know he is still there- he is your baby still but while you are gaining an independent, fun-loving, exciting toddler, you are losing a baby. That stage is over and "1" really does make it real.

I picked a book off the library display that said, "Chicken Soup for the Women's Soul".

I love the other chicken soup books and it sounded perfect for Mother's Day weekend to read a couple stories from it.

The first story I read was about a mom who had just become an empty-nester.
There she was, the week after sending her last baby off to college, sitting in the waiting room to see her doctor.  As she glanced around, she noticed several pregnant women sitting in there waiting as well. She lamented about how unfair it was to make menopausal women share the same room and how it felt like she was sitting there just barely waiting to hear her first baby's heartbeat.

That really got to me. How could a lady feel like she was just there after she had 3 kids moved out of the house? Didn't she feel like all that time had past and wasn't it so normal to be where she was?

Then it hit me and I just bawled my little eye-balls out.

I get it. Reading her story, I get it. It goes quickly. I saw this image someone had put together of your child's life. You get a baby for a year. A toddler for 2. A preschooler for 2 years. A child for 5 years. A pre-teen for a few years. A teenager for a few years. A  young-adult for a few years and then boom! They are gone. That really showed how it could pass so quickly and why everyone says that. Because you only get your child in each stage for so long and then they are in the next one.

Time to enjoy this next stage that I will have for 2 yearsish.