Holiday Reflections

For the last several months I've been fighting off depression and trying to stay positive while feeling completely overwhelmed by the business of being "Mom," so when my family asked what I wanted for my birthday, there was no question about what was at the top of my list--TIME OFF!!!

I think I've had very little of it compared most of my mom-friends (at least the overnight or all -day kind), partly because I was lucky enough to have no troubles with breast-feeding whatsoever, so Theo was hooked on boobies until he was past age one. And partly because I honestly feel quite guilty (irrationally so) and really miss him when I pawn him off on other people. He was so easy to haul around with me everywhere for the first year, and so mellow. Now he's two and quite the hassle on some outings. Plus he's eating proper food now and has to be kept on a fairly consistent routine with meals and naps. And toddlers are just totally OCD about everything too. And since I'm pretty much the only one who knows all his little quirks and obsessions and I can understand his badly-pronounced words and how to get him to cooperate I often feel like I have to write a novel about how to deal with him when I leave him with people for more than a couple of hours.

But with the new baby coming in two months and me likely to have no sleep--never mind time off-- I was desperate to fit in a little parenting holiday before more chaos descends on me. So that's what I asked for and my family generously obliged and took him overnight so that I had a whole 24 hours to recall what it was like before Theo was the center of my existence.

Of course I had very big plans lined up for how I was going to spend all this spare time-- dinner out for my birthday, a pedicure etc. And my husband and I had a terrific time. We drove way out to a lake we'd never explored and had a lovely kid-free day. But standing in our kitchen in the morning-- the only morning we'd woken up in our own beds without the noise of a kid in two years--we couldn't help but wonder just what the heck we used to DO with all our spare time before the kids arrived. We stayed in bed till 9:30-- which felt stupidly lazy, but it was nothing compared to how late we USED to sleep in on weekends. And we took like an hour over breakfast and actually got to eat it together and it just felt ODD.

And of course half the conversation we had while enjoying our freedom was all about Theo and what we wanted to do with him in the summer and how cute he would look paddling a canoe. We went shopping for outdoor gear and the only thing we bought was a set of woolies for him. More than once I had to fight the temptation to call my parents and find out if he was behaving and whether or not he missed us.

It's funny how quickly you become "Mama" and "Dadda" even in your own minds after the kids arrive. I remember my dad telling Greg and I, while we were still engaged, that soon we'd have trouble recalling what it was like to be single, and that after the kids arrived it would be even harder to remember what marriage was like without them. He was so right. Of course I remember the freedom of marriage before kids, but it feels like it happened to someone else kind of. And I guess, in some sense, it did. I'm not the person I used to be before Theo came along, and in spite of stress and pressure (greatly enhanced by pregnancy hormones) I really don't miss it. :)