How Do I Stand It?

The growing up, I mean. How do I not burst into a thousand tears? Stella's in her bunk bed and Gianna's in the crib. I'm in my bedroom in the middle of the day. With a light on. And flagrantly TYPING ON MY KEYBOARD. AS LOUD AS POSSIBLE. Because there is no baby asleep in a little bed in here with me.

How do I stand it? Seriously. And there's going to be more of this. These transitions and milestones. These aches and sadness and the welling up of tears.

I caught Stella playing in her room instead of napping. She saw me and said, "Oh, Goo' morning, Mom."

"It's not morning, Stell, you never slept. Time for bed."

"Want to sleep with me, Mom?"

Totally caught off guard, I oblige her and say, "OK, scoot over."

We're laying there and she's not settling down. And as much as I want to sleep beside her little, sweet frame I know she won't sleep. I have to pull myself away. Because as much as I am having a hard time with all this growing up, I know myself enough to know that I'll have an even harder time with the small child that she still very much is trying to keep her shit together without a nap.

I let myself out of her room with warnings of some swats if she gets up to play. I peek in a few minutes later and she is asleep.

And in the next room in Stella's crib is the other baby. The ten month old baby. I went through this with Stella, too. And it helps to know that I will survive. I had the hardest time when Stella moved from our room to her own room when she was Gianna's age. I was so sad and felt so alone and far away from her. Of course Jamie was with me but, eh, not the same thing.

All this growing up makes it hard for me to indulge my favorite pastime: purging excess material goods from our home. I have the hardest time throwing the girls' stuff away, or passing it on, or even packing it up. I think this is because it's a physical admission that they are beyond a certain point. It sounds so silly to say it out loud. But there's this part of me that craves the beginning again. The uncertainty of parenthood. The unknown of what I was getting myself into. All the growing up I had to do.