Oh, the times, they are a-changing. It's time to open a new chapter in our lives (again) as we prepare to say goodbye to the studio apartment and hello to the one-bedroom awesomeness that is our new place. The big move is this weekend, tonight, actually, once Husband gets home with some boxes. Our new home is half the first floor of a Victorian style mansion that is over 100 years old. Places like that are actually pretty common here in Santa Cruz, but I never thought I would be fortunate enough to live in one. It is so gorgeously vintage and fabulous. Love at first sight.
Today, I took Collin for our last walk around the lagoon that surrounds our current apartment complex. The feelings that washed over me were so unexpectedly profound. Suddenly, I was having flashbacks of walking through the lagoon as a blushing newlywed, holding Husband's hand as we daydreamed about taking our future children here. Fast forward a little, and now I'm remembering all the desperate loops around the water I made with Collin, both of us miserably sick, praying the rhythmic rocking of my steps in his Ergo carrier would lull him to sleep. Just a few minutes of precious sleep.
The last time Collin and I walked through the lagoon, I saw a little lone duckling paddling around by itself, and my eyes swelled with tears. Where was its mother? Why was such a little duckling all alone? Being a mother gives you a different spin on just about everything. I looked down at Collin's (finally) sleeping face, his body curled against mine, all bundled in his jacket and boots, and I thought, "Will he ever stop being my childling?'
And I realized that no, he won't. Even when he's paddling around the great big pond all by himself with his own car and a job and a family, he will always be my childling. I will always welcome him back home to the nest with open wings.
I stopped by Whole Foods on my way to work yesterday to pick up diapers. As I was leaving, I noticed a young woman browsing the cracker isle, absentmindedly caressing her beautiful pregnant orb of a belly, and I stopped in my tracks. I wanted to run to her, kiss her precious belly, try to think of the words to tell her how amazingly blessed her life will be. How full-to-the-brim her heart will be. How she has no idea just how incredible it will feel to hold a tiny newborn against her heart and feel its little life beating with hers. However, in the same moment, I also wanted to grab her by the shoulders and shake her and scream, "Run, girl! Get out while you still can!" And try to think of the words to tell her how miserably sleep-deprived and slightly insane she will feel on a 24 hour basis. How depressing it will be to climb her exhausted self into bed at night, only to know that in an hour (or less), she will be jarred awake again by her baby's constant need. How she will completely loose any sense of self she had, to be replaced with her new "self," this child that needs her constant attention.
In the end, I decided it was best to just keep walking.
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