Today my friends became parents. In a hospital not far from my home their baby girl came into the world. It’s a day they will never forget.
Each time a friend has a baby I’m amazed by the enormity of the event. It is an event that will completely change your life forever and all the planning and prepping in the world can not prepare you.
And I can’t help but think of all that lies ahead for them. We all talk about the sleepless nights, and the crying and the napless days but when a baby is born I don’t think about that. Instead I find myself thinking of the way Jack’s head rested perfectly across my arms in those early days. Or how we sat in the rocker when he was just weeks old and I sang Christmas carols until he fell asleep, he loved jingle bells.
I think of how we cheered when he learned to rollover. I think of his laughter that is so utterly infectious, even when he was 9 months old and laughing at Sesame Street.
I think of first steps and first words. I think of how he used to wave bye bye to Daddy in the morning and how he now watches him leave from the window. I remember his first taste of ice cream and how he cried when it was all gone. I remember these moments. I think of these small little bits of joy, that I am so blessed to have been apart of.
And I remember the way John looked at Jack when he first held him in his arms and how being a Daddy has changed my husband. How being a mom has changed me, about how being a parent has changed our marriage. All for the better.
I think about love. Love that over shadows sleepless nights and days of colic. Love that dims the memories of tantrums and toddler chaos. Love that links together all those small moments, all those little joys.
And I want to tell my friends that it is these things that are what makes being a parent so wonderful. I want to tell them this but I know they will soon know all this. That even in the moments that we all tend to complain about, even when we sit around and commiserate about this crazy journey we are all on. Even when the day has been long and the patience has been thin and the husband has forgotten to buy wine. Even then I still go to bed and look forward to doing it all again.
It's amazing how much your life changes when you become a parent. It's something that you can't even fully understand until it happens to you. I thought I knew what I was in for, the love I would have, the things we would do. Everything changed the second Eli came into the world. I seriously had no idea a love like this existed, and it's so hard to explain or even imagine until you go through it.
This post brought me right back to those first few weeks with our first born! I can even remember the smells, the sounds, the feel of my son's clothes. And look how far we've come! It's been quite a journey, that's for sure.
Glad this post brought back so many good memories for you.