Annoyingly True

Before having a child I often heard these types of comments tossed about:

“You’ve never known unconditional love until you have a child.”

“Once you have kids, time will fly by faster than you could ever imagine.”

“Holding your child in your arms is like no other experience in the world.”

“You’ll never see a news story again concerning a child without crying.”

“Every milestone your child reaches will feel worthy of multiple phone calls, e-mails, and photos.”

“You will think your child is the most amazing person in the world (or a plural version of that sentiment).”

The annoying thing is that all these comments are true, and then some. 

When Eli was born, in a way I cannot fully describe, I felt my world expand and shrink at the same time.  Suddenly, so many previously “important” things, people, events, to-dos, etc., seemed trivial, at best.  What had I done with my time before him?  Suddenly, it felt as though I had been caring about so many things that truly were not important.  So in that sense my world shrunk.  I stopped paying attention, sometimes too much, to what was happening in the world around me.  I lived and breathed my child.  And I loved it.

It was in this way that my world expanded.  Eli opened a floodgate of love from my heart.  I know, I know, it’s Valentine’s Day today and that just sounds cheesy as hell.  But I won’t apologize for it.  I’ve never loved anyone as purely and simply as I love Eli.  It was and sometimes still is frightening to me, the fierceness with which I love this little guy.  By opening myself up this way, I’ve learned to appreciate the love I feel for other people, too, and the relationships that have true significance to me.   

It’s unsettling sometimes, how differently you look at life once you have a child.  It’s a new lens through which to view the world, and you realize very quickly how your habits and attitudes will color the outlook your child will have towards the world, too. 

What made me think about all this?  Eli started walking last week.  Just typing that sentence makes me shake my head in wonder.  Where does time go?  Here’s a snippet from my journal entry that day…

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2.10.11

Today was a momentous day.  Eli has been taking a few steps here and there the last week or two.  At most I had seen him take three steps in a row.  Well, today I come out of the bedroom to check on him and watched him walk ½ way across the living room.  Less than an hour later he walked from one side of the room to the other, at first in forward steps, then he got shaky and proceeded with some sideways steps.

It’s hard to describe how it felt to watch him do this.  I didn’t expect it to be such an overwhelming moment.  Mostly, I felt joy.  The determination and subsequent pride on his face made me so happy.  I was also very excited to see him reach this milestone.  He’s been close to it for what has felt to be a very long time, so I knew the time was near.  There was also awe mixed in there.  The fact that he grows and changes so quickly, has turned into less and less of a baby with each passing day, well, it’s an amazing transformation to witness.  Although, it does bring sadness, too.  Independence is a necessary step as we grow up, but to see him take steps away reminds me to hug and squeeze him every chance I get now, before he’s running away for good.

As someone who is just about 33 weeks pregnant, it also brings some relief.  This kid is heavy and I am struggling to carry him around.  Despite the opinion that, “you don’t want him to walk for as long as possible, because then it’s all over,” well, I cannot subscribe to that philosophy.  As soon as Eli became mobile and could open and get into cupboards, the trash, and anything else he knows he’s not supposed to have, that’s when I considered things to be “all over.”  Sure, he may be harder to catch now, and I suspect we are going to be moving back into the land of nasty spills for awhile (and it felt so good to get away from that for a bit), but I would still rather have him getting from Point A to Point B on his own.

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And so it goes.  Now I find myself spewing out annoying comments and observations about what life is like with a child (yes, I am truly sorry if I annoy you).  I always thought I could relate to the sentiments expressed by others prior to having my own children, and in a way I could, but nothing could have prepared me for the whirlwind of emotions and experiences that comes with raising a child, or how it would affect me to the core.

And now, whenever I hear someone else making a declaration of sorts about how children change your life, I smile a little smile and nod my head in agreement.