I Blinked
I blinked and this year is well more than half gone. I blinked and my sweet baby boy will be four months old next Saturday. I blinked and the newborn I held in my arms seemingly yesterday is thriving in all the joys of infanthood… smiling, laughing, cooing, rolling over, and discovering his “squawky” voice.
I want to cherish each moment; they go by so incredibly fast. I am learning to have grace for myself as I embrace motherhood in this season of life. It is not always easy to do so. I was in labor for essentially one hundred hours and had an exhaustingly intense and long active labor and delivery. But the moment my son was born and placed in my arms, the exhaustion and pain melted away into the most surreal moment that words can’t even begin to describe. I have had to daily remind myself that my body is fearfully and wonderfully made[i]; the physical recovery post-partum has been a significantly longer journey than I anticipated.
I am learning to be grateful in the moment, whether that means scrubbing projectile vomited milk curds off my carpet (alas, the fur slippers did not make it), washing the umpteenth load of laundry, or simply holding my son and just being, despite the fact that there is cat fur swirling around my on un-vacuumed floors and the dishes are still piled up in the sink. There will always be laundry to wash and dishes to do, but these moments with my baby are once-in-a-lifetime moments. I blink and they’re gone, replaced by the next moment’s joys and challenges. In years to come, I want to look back and remember these moments with fondness; that the challenges were just as much a part of our story as the joy-filled moments, melded together in such a way that without one or the other, the story would be incomplete.
I blinked.
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[i] “I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Marvelous are Your works, And that my soul knows very well.” (Psalm 139:14, NKJV)
All photos in this post are courtesy of Emily Eileen Photography.