Lasts

One of the hardest parts of motherhood for me is lasts.

You rarely get to plan them. They sneak up on you. Sometimes they pass without you noticing till it’s too late.

Brett was completely in charge of the bed time routine with our oldest daughter. He would brush her teeth, give her a bath, put on her diaper, get her in pajamas, read to her, sing to her, and then hand her to me to nurse to sleep. After over 3 years of doing that (except the nursing to sleep, at 13 months he would hand her to me and I’d sing to her and put her down), she potty trained from one day to the next. We put her in underwear after her nap and then at bed time gave her the choice of underwear or a diaper. She chose underwear. And he realized he’d already put the last diaper on her. It was an unexpected emotional moment.

Our youngest is 19 months old. He’s still waking up to nurse at night. I LOVE my sleep. But I also consider those moonlit moments of holding my warm, soft, sleeping children so close to me to be sacred moments. Our bedroom window faces south and I have a rocker-recliner next to the window. I have loved opening the blinds at night when the moon is big to let that soft blue light rest on my baby’s cheeks and feel his small hand hold on to my chest.

But I can tell the LAST is coming. And as much as I want to sleep through the night again, I’m definitely going to miss those sacred moments.

And I won’t even know to enjoy that LAST until it’s already gone.