Wasn’t it just yesterday?
Going from the mother of 1 to the pregnant mom of almost 2 somehow makes it a more complete transformation in my mind. With Sabrina, I am able to still be very mobile and do most of the things I want/need to do. Being pregnant and soon adding a second little one to the brood feels like I am hampering that mobility and laid back life style. It isn’t a bad thing, it just feels like it requires more of an attitude and lifestyle adjustment than having 1 child did.
If you take a second to quickly see your life as others must from the outside, does it ever startle you a bit? The fact that at a quick glance, I can be described as a pregnant stay at home mom of a toddler always makes me want to say “What? Who?”. I look in my rear view mirror and see a car seat and realize I need to add another in a few months. When did this happen? My life today doesn’t even slightly resemble my life just 1 year and 1 week ago. Sometimes I’m just not sure what happened or when.
If someone told my 21 year old, just graduated from college, femi-nazi, headed to law school, traveling the world, never getting married or having kids self that my life would be this in less than 15 years? I never would have believed it. If you then told my 21 year old self that I was actually happy about the way my life looks today? I would have said you were smoking crack.
I pulled a coat out of the back of the closet this weekend. I felt something in pocket and pulled out a clump of legos. Just a few short years ago, I would have likely pulled out a lost lighter, a pack of stale cigarettes, and maybe some cash. Now I find legos and stale goldfish crackers. It just highlights how completely my life has changed.
None of this is complaint. I very deliberately chose my life. I’m just surprised some days by where I’ve chosen to go based on where I started as an adult. I wouldn’t change most of the choices I’ve made because they have brought me here and made me who I am. I am overjoyed to know our little family is growing. I am happy to soon be the mother of 2. It is just incongruent with how I picture myself. Guess I need to adjust that picture, huh?
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I wrote all of those paragraphs independently as drafts to start this post because it has been bouncing around in my head. I couldn’t make it flow so I’m throwing all of my draft pieces into one. Excuse the disjointedness.
SO eloquently stated, Michelle.
As a mom of TWO, I get it.
Just the other day a gentleman at the mall held the door for me while I was wrangling Victoria & Sofia inside.
He smiled and said, “Don’t blink, you will be at their graduations before you know it….”
Life is a CRAZY thing!
For having wrote that as independent posts it turned out really well!
I also have to agree that it is amazing the way life takes its twists and turns.
I pulled a Hot Wheel out of my pocket yesterday.
I knew I wanted to be a mom. I just didn’t know how or when. I certainly didn’t think it would take 10 years of marriage to make that happen or 3 years of trying or a struggle.
Yeah… I don’t know how I got to be FORTY!!! Man, that is OLD in my very young brain! Can’t wrap myself around that quite yet… but never thought I would be a single mom, divorced 9 years with 3 kids! Seems literally like yesterday that I was where you are… a toddler and pregnant with #2… now… they are almost 16, 13 and I have a toddler again! Time is a weird thing…
Great post!! Hope you are getting the warmer weather we are experiencing today in KY! Finally looking like Spring!
That was very well written. You are right that life changes right before you. And, I do pull out goldfish crackers, snot rags, and other momentos from my pockets every day.
But, unlike you I am right where I always dreamed I would be. Since I can remember I wanted three children. I wanted to be a stay at home mom. I wanted to adopt. I guess that I have the dream. Now, my problem is figuring out what I want past this dream. That is where I am at now.
Life goes by so fast. What will we be saying twenty years from now?? I imagine by then I will be a grandmother. DEAR GOD, I must go have a drink now!!
I totally get it! I wasn’t ever sure about having kids, I just wasn’t the “mommy” type, not really knowing what that was either. But now, 3 kids later…life has changed and I love my life!
As far as keeping up with a toddler and being pregnant…very difficult! I was continuously exhausted and quite bitchy on occasions!
So true, so true…I was just explaining to a mother/daughter (14 years old) about the differences in my dream car from her age to now. She had just pointed out the latest, sleek and sweet sports car as her dream car. Since that car is nicer than her Mom’s, I don’t think she’ll be receiving that “Sweet 16” treat. Anyways, Corvettes, sporty Jags, and Ferraris are only in my dreams of yesterday. My new dream is one of the new crossover or small SUV style autos. Never a station wagon, but close with the crossover style. Take care.
or do you adjust the picture?
Im wondering all that myself.
MANY PEOPLE remark to me how Ill have to change xyz as emma gets older (think bandana wearing and go from there) and while I know that’s not sipping a 40 or smoking I wonder often DO I?
being the mom who walked around all day without realizing she had a dried goldfish on her shirt (the crackerkind. Im not that bad off) is part of me I LOVELOVELOVE (and couldnt have imagined either)
but it is merely a facet I think.
on that note Im off to gather the duckies and herd the goldfish smoosher up to ger BAFF.
i found the change going from 1 to 2 monumental and exponential. unbelieveably so. it is great for you to process this before the baby is born. i thought i had, but it turns out…not as much as i needed to!
major growing mommy moment #1: both your babies crying for you to help them at the same time….suddenly your previous “no dependents” life seems very distant indeed!
rewarding? yes. life altering? no question.
my favorite mommies are the ones with 3 or 4 who say “after you add the second, it really is no big deal to go to the third or fourth”. we won’t be testing that theory in our home, but i am in awe of those who do it, and do it well.
Great post, didn’t seem disjointed at all.
When I was younger, all I wanted to do was get married and have a family. Then somehow, I fell into a career, got married, got divorced, got married again and thought I was happy. The fact that I cried hysterically anytime I had to be around a baby, and couldn’t shop in the baby section of stores without leaving in tears didn’t quite clue me in to the fact that I wasn’t as happy as I thought.
Now, at 41 with a 20 month old son, I know happiness; and no, I never go into hysterics at the thought of having to walk through the baby section of a store.
Yup I get it. I’m a mom now of a 14 month old and a 2 month old. My life is chaos but I love it.
wow. that post flowed quite nicely for being seperate drafts.
It is startling to see where life takes you sometimes. Sometimes your whole world can do a 180 in a very short period of time. And being a mom, I think it’s most amazing how your priorities shift and that you are pretty much ok with it.
Didn’t have a clue how much was going to be changed and getting naps at the same time, HA! miss those quiet “me” days SOME times but then I sit down with them and we laugh, tickle, sing and play and I realize there’s nothing better than that! We choose to start over and I don’t regret a thing (at least MOST days)!!!! Having a 23, 19 and 3.5 year old and then 18 months, it does most definitely make life BUSY and never ever a dull moment!!!
LIFE will definitely change even more than you suspect but it’s a good change and definitely a fun one on most days!
Rhonda – mom to FOUR
I am mom to only one, and sometimes I wish for more. We had agreed not to adopt more than one…but the other night hubby said maybe we should so she wont be alone when we die. (He has since recinded that thought) We are pretty old to be thinking about another though, I am heading towards fifty…and MIke is past it. My baby is growing up and I am sometimes sad.