Time is a funny thing.
I've always tried to embrace it, embrace the continuity of it, embrace the inevitability of it.
I'm not the parent who will whine about my baby growing up.
I'm not the parent who will say, "I miss my little baby."
I don't tend to get that nostalgic to be honest.
I try and embrace where I'm at and live in this moment and be thankful for it.
Babies are meant to grow. Toddlers are meant to get taller, and run faster and talk and do more.
Children are meant to learn and explore and become people.
That is what is supposed to happen.
But I love looking back. I love looking at pictures of baby Emilio and marveling at what he is today. Who he is today. I can't even see the baby in him any more. And I don't get wistful, I'm more amazed at everything being how it is supposed to be.
On Sunday we celebrated Ava's birthday.
Her birth was marvelous. It was an accomplishment and nearly everything I had hoped and planned for.
I still feel the high of natural birth after a c-section aka VBAC. Really. I still feel powerful and strong and womanly that I grew her in my body and birthed her. Even stronger for having brought her in to this side of our world through a challenge of her facing up instead of down. (more on her birth story if you click on the "burger" (three lines) on the top left of the site and then birth stories)
When I look at pictures of her from that time I do find myself missing pieces of it.
I miss the white dots on her nose. I miss the soft coos and noises she made from the beginning, no wonder she's such a chatter box now. I miss the days that flowed together in to one. I miss holding her in a woven wrap against my body and moving through my days with her strapped to me.
I find myself lingering in nostalgia.
But I don't stay long.
I look at her now and love so much who she is and what she brings to our worlds now. I don't want to wish it away thinking of the past, or wondering for the future.
I want to enjoy the now as fully as I can.
Babes are so sweet, those early days are so overwhelmingly sweet. And I felt my best self in those days, and months after her birth. I felt the most fulfilled.
So I linger on the memories, as I should, and keep embracing the here and now. She's right where she should be and she fills our worlds so fully.
Here's to another trip around the sun with her.
