It’s bittersweet.
I have seen this before. It’s happening again. But this time, the wonder and awe that come with each new milestone my baby reaches turn into sadness. With every new thing she learns, she grows farther and farther away from me.
It’s inevitable.
I witnessed it with my firstborn. There are things children learn on their own, even if you don’t teach them. They still happen. It’s part of their normal development.
My first child wasn’t a chubby baby. She was long but thin, so I was scared to let her do tummy time. But even though we didn’t “practice” it, her arms still grew strong, no matter how frail they may have looked compared with those of chubbier babies. She still learned to lie on her tummy.
The same is true of every milestone, from sitting and crawling to walking, until babies become tiny, defiant humans, also known as toddlers.
Now that I have a three-year-old and a six-month-old, I admit that I have a hard time being patient with the toddler. There are times when I would rather care for the infant than have my patience tested by the toddler.
But every milestone the infant reaches makes me realize how much closer she is getting to the toddler stage that I currently struggle with.
Don’t get me wrong. Toddlers are still fun. It’s not always anger and defiance. They are also the sweetest little people who say the most random things. They love their parents so much that they say they don’t want them to grow old or die.
But they take a lot of work.
There are times when I find myself crying from emotional exhaustion while caring for a strong-willed toddler.
Back then, with my first child, every milestone was new. It was exciting. You celebrate as they grow bigger.
But this time around, I realize that caring for a baby is much easier. And there’s this pain in knowing that I will never get the chance to see their younger selves again. With each passing day, they become less and less like the babies I once knew.
Maybe that’s why younger children are treated like babies for longer. Maybe parents want to prolong that stage of their lives.
Babies are sweet, fragile creatures who depend on their parents. They are easier to parent. They have no opinions and no complicated issues.
But they can’t be babies forever. They are meant to grow and, one day, stand on their own feet.
And that’s the bittersweet part of parenting: knowing that you are teaching them to grow up while becoming more and more attached to them each day. You learn to love someone more than yourself, to love so deeply that your heart feels like it’s bursting, only to help them grow and teach them how to live separately from you.
You love them, only to let them go.
