You needed me – To my ever-growing Toddler
Tonight, you needed me. Tonight, was not like our usual nights. Tonight, you fought sleep like it was the enemy and ultimately succumbed to its power. After a long day, actually after a few too many long days, of asserting your independence and proving that you can do things all on your own, you needed me. After weeks (or has it been months now?) of testing boundaries and literally running around as if you were a tiny tornado, destroying everything in your path, I was beginning to wonder where my baby had gone. Now our days are spent tidying up the same things over and over again as I try to teach you not to eat dog food or hug the cat too hard or throw my hair brush in the toilet for the 3rd time. Days are spent with too many tears from your overwhelmed, “I feel like a failure” of a mother. If I’m honest, they are also filled with more yelling than I would ever like to admit. You are learning and so am I. While you are learning boundaries in the world around you, I am trying to navigate my own emotional boundaries, and both come with their own challenges.
Yet tonight, despite the yelling and frustration from an awful day, you needed me. Not in the way you need me when you’re hungry or have a boo boo but in the same way you used to need me when you were smaller and needed to feel safe. So small that you would just fall asleep cradled in my arms, because that was the safest place you could be. Tonight, you let me hold you, even though you are too big to cradle the same way, you still fit in my arms like two parts of a puzzle. You were so warm and tucked into my arms, I imagined how cozy that must feel for you. To be held with such love. The faint glow from the sound machine on your face brings back memories of our first few nights together, where the same glow from our night light would kiss your face like a summer sunrise. Then I wonder, when did your tiny hands get so big? How is it that 20 months have sped by like a racing train? I remember tracking the size of those hands even before you were born. Each week getting an update on my app to tell me how big you were getting and ultimately the size of those tiny hands…So when did they get so big? Tonight, as I rock you, time is standing still. I know these nights are few and far between and there will come a time where you will no longer fit in my arms the way you do now. Right now, you need me…and I need you too.
Even though the days have been hard, in the evenings I am harder on myself. When the house is finally quiet and I have a moment to myself, I can feel the weight of guilt on my shoulders. I shouldn’t have yelled, I should have appreciated these moments more, I should have played with you 8 times instead of 7 even though the dishes had to be done. Honestly, I’m exhausted, I miss the moments of staring into your eyes as a new baby and just taking in every moment. The way your eyes look, the smile on your face when you sleep, running my hands through the little amount hair you had. I miss those moments, because now as a toddler I can’t hold you like I used to. You are not the same tiny baby you once were. I thought these moments wouldn’t come for a few more years but I have already watched your personality blossom. You’ve blossomed into this tiny little adventurous, inquisitive, never sit still, contagiously laughing tiny human. I can’t hold you and cradle you when I need cuddles or some love, I can’t just lay with you next to me in bed any more. You have too much to explore and too many things to get into. You are already too busy for mommy cuddles but tonight, you needed me. As I stare at your long eye lashes and your smushed face as is presses against my arm, I run my fingers through your hair and I am grateful for this moment.
I am also grateful for you. You have given my life so many things already in such a short period of time. You have shown me how to laugh at the absolute smallest things, like wearing socks on your hands. I have felt joy within my soul when I see your facial expression of how excited you get when you see another kitty. You have shown me that it is okay to feel sad when something is taken away from you, but that it is also important to explain to you the reasons why. You have helped me learn to get down to your level and communicate with you the best way we both know how. I have learned that chasing the dogs around the house will elicit the greatest squeal I have ever heard come out of another human. I have also learned that with every lesson you learn, you get more and more excited to show me what you learned. You have taught me that even though you don’t show it with cuddles any more, you still need me. We are both human, we are learning and even on the hardest days we still need love.
Motherhood is hard, there is no doubt about that. But it is also wonderful and incredible and exhausting and challenging and one hell of a mess. You and I have had some messy days, some days where I wish I could erase them from existence but I can’t. I can only try and do better the next day, and the next. Your mother is not perfect, far from it in fact, and I will make mistakes and I will have some really hard days right along side you. But on those days, I all I really want to know is if I am still a good mom. The only person who can truly tell me that… is you. Even after a long exhausting day, one that I am ashamed of for failing at keeping my cool, and the constant battle with sleep that you had… you still needed me.
Tonight, you needed me, but tonight I needed you too.
