When we had Lil G-man, when he was still littler than me, I remember that euphoric happiness I felt and being so madly in love. He was such a darling baby and so loving from the very beginning. I adored him but looking back, even after only the first year, I realized I spent much of my time with him thinking "I can't wait until he smile/laughs/rolls over/sits up/eats solids/crawls/sits" what have you. It's like I saw what he was doing now and enjoyed it but I was always waiting and anticipating the "next big thing" (that's what The Man and I call it). I mean I enjoyed my time with him to the fullest and it was just the three of us, and often just the two of us because I spent my days with him, and I loved every bit of it but there was an anticipation that was always there. He was our first, I had all the time in the world to sit and play blocks with him and help him figuring out the crawling thing and walk with him holding his hands so he could get used to it. We colored and drew letters and numbers as he got older. He learned things at a remarkable rate, even as a wee little one.
When Mimi came along it was similar, not the same but similar. She raced through her physical milestones at rocket speed and I could barely keep up with her it seemed sometimes. She wasn't cuddly and huggy all the time like the G-man. She was definitely her own person and independent from the word go. She was rolling over at 8 weeks, sitting up at 4 months, walking at 9 (almost 10) months. She always seemed to have the attitude of "put me DOWN, woman, I am BUSY. Can't you see I have things to do?!" She was very very different from her big brother in every way imaginable. Still, I anticipated... I can't wait until she's old enough to play with G-man. I can't wait until.... it was often until.
Tinesy came along in short order and she was a joy. She was a good mix of her two older sibs. She loved to be held and cuddled and kissed on. She could sit in my arms and be content... and she could just as easily go off and play with her sibs and be perfectly happy. She was my "check in" child. She loved to go off and play but she would come back to me every 15 minutes or so for a quick "I love you" and a squeeze and race off again. She was also sick. She got sick. We almost lost her. We came so close. It was a dark time for me. I don't think any mother ever wants to hear a Dr. tell her that he child "isn't going to make it" and recovering from something like that, even when it turned out to not be true, had it's deep and profound repercussions. It changed me.
By the time that Biggle came into our lives, four years after Tinesy, I was a different mother. I was older and had been through hard times with the children. I had a new perspective. Maybe one that other mothers naturally have and one that I had to come around to, I don't know, but it came. With Biggle I enjoyed NOW every single moment with him. I loved on him and held him and every day I would at some point inevitably say "Look at him!! Isn't he AMAZING!! Look at how amazing he is RIGHT NOW." I didn't wait on tenterhooks for him to sit or crawl or walk. I just enjoyed him now. It was huge for me and such a change in my paradigm that I was keenly aware of it. Biggle was a joy as a baby. I say this because it's the truth... he was the easiest, happiest, and most content baby out of all of them. He was ALWAYS happy. He always had a smile for every person he came across. He was always happy and content. He rarely ever cried. He was just an absolute joy. He was "The One." He wasn't sick. He had no medical issues. He was just a beacon of pure joy. I think that because he was so easy and happy that I thought we should have more children. Truly.
Boo came into our lives and, well, truthfully, life kind of exploded. It was like an atomic bomb went off in the middle of our family. Everything changed. Fear became a huge part of my life. Huge. Guilt consumed me and threatened to overcome me. Boo was and still is a joy and I love him with every fiber of my being but his arrival changed the entire world for me, in a different way than Tinesy did. Boo was a high needs baby, naturally, because of all his medical issues. We didn't know what was wrong with him. We spent the first year not even sure if he was going to live. So with sweet Boo it wasn't about anticipating or even enjoying the now. It was all about fear. Is he going to be okay? Is he going to live? What's going to become of him? Will he survive this next surgery? Do we have to do that test? There was very little time to enjoy him. Mostly it was about comforting him, easing his pain, and trying to find our way down this dark path. Boo is still a lot of work by comparison to other children his age, but he is an absolute joy as well. I CAN now look at him and enjoy his right now. It took years to get there. We had to learn a lot along the way to get here but it's good. He is amazing. Truly. He is my inspiration.
Well, then we get to the reason I started typing out all this nonsense in the first place. We welcomed the Kitten into our lives. Surprise!!!! She was quite the surprise I must say. I spent my entire pregnancy scared out of my mind. Seriously. Scared so badly I know looking back that I wasn't thinking clearly because the fear I felt was more than my brain could handle. I admit it too that I didn't WANT to be pregnant. I really didn't. I was terrified not just if my baby was going to be okay, which consumed me, but about how in the world I was going to manage a newborn AND Boo. How was I going to be able to handle a needy newborn and take care of Boo and his needs and appointments and testing and everything. It all seemed like it was too much. Still, I am a mami. I know it's what I was meant for. I went into the OR for my C-sec almost in tears thinking "I can't do this" and "I don't WANT to do this." They pulled her out and I heard her cry and The Man brought her to me to see her beautiful face and that was it, I was a goner. I was head over heels in love. I got to my room, after much complications and problems, and held her in my arms and told her "Well, my love, I didn't know it was going to be YOU!! Of course I want you and I love you and I will always take care of you and YOU are a gift from God." Yeah... took all of about 2 seconds for me to see that little face and know that this is what was meant to be all along. She was healthy. She was perfect. She was not sick.
Kitten has been a life saver for me. I have told people before that somehow that little girl managed to pour herself into my broken heart and fill in the broken spots and the cracks and the empty spaces. She managed to put a lid on the self loathing and the mental anguish that I had "broken" Boo. Yeah, it still bubbles up to the surface now and then but 98% of the time I'm good... and that's because of our Kitten in large part. The Man often tells our friends, laughingly, that Kitten helped me more than 50 years of therapy 3 times a week could have helped. He's right and we joke about it, but the fact is he's right.
From the beginning the Kitten has been her own person. She is tough and independent, like Mimi was as a little one, and yet she has always loved to be held and hugged and snuggled, like Biggle boy when he was small. She is crazy smart, like G-man, but she is also clever and cunning (and that's a compliment!), like Tinesy. She adores her Boo and often tells anyone willing to listen that Boo is her favorite "brover." She loves intensely and is fiercely protective. She's always been kind of an odd mix of "I do it myself" and "hold me, Mami." I love it. She is the child that will run like a wild child all day long and then at night curl up next to me in bed and quietly whisper half asleep "I love you, Mami" as she holds me tight.
So the whole reason I'm writing this... RIGHT! I'm on that. Last night Kitten slept in her own bed all night long. She does this. She goes through phases where for a month she'll sleep in her own bed and then the next month she'll sleep every night in bed with her father and I. She's funny that way. Still, she slept in her bed ALL night last night. So I was sure to praise her for that when she woke up this morning calling. I went in and fetched her and curled up with her and held her close and told her how proud I was of her that she had slept in her bed all night. She lit up like a Christmas tree with pride. She smiled that big toothless smile of hers and she squeezed me around the neck as tight as she could and then announced loudly and with pride "Yes. I'm a big girl. I'm very brave of the dark." Oh yeah.... that's the stuff. I remembered to tell myself to enjoy THIS right NOW because this is a special moment. This is one of those moments you want to replay in your mind over and over for the rest of your life. I held tight to my little Kitten and smiled and told her that she was indeed VERY brave of the dark. What a big brave girl.
With all the children I always make sure to enjoy NOW. I take pains to do so sometimes. G-man will be leaving for college in a year so I try to hold onto my moments with him. I treasure every second of when he walks in the door from school bursting with funny or clever stories of what happened that day. What clever quip he threw out in class. What animated story of what happened with his friends. I treasure them like gold and I'm storing them away in my memory forever. Mimi and Tinesy and Biggle and Boo and the Kitten too. They are growing up and I am loving NOW with them. I am loving how Brave of the Dark they all are, each in their own way.
Brave of the Dark. Maybe if I ever write that book I keep saying I want to write I'll call it that. I think all of my kids have found their own Dark and they are all Very Brave of the Dark.
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