The half-year mark
It's dumbfounding just how much a little being can teach you in half a year. I can't help but acknowledge that had it been any ordinary 6 months (and not my son's first half year on Earth), I wouldn't have necessarily valued them. I would've gone ahead with work, grateful for some projects and making do with others. All of a sudden it would've been fall, then winter. I would plan a nice trip with my husband. I would've enjoyed the straightforwardness of it all, and I would've perhaps appreciated the freedom to do whatever I wanted. Yet, I know there's nothing I could've done in that time that would have been nearly as gratifying and mesmerizing as watching my kid develop, and noticing myself develop with him.
It hasn't been without its (many) challenges. As a parent in 2018 one can't help but compare oneself - and one's baby - to others on Instagram. Or, you know, any social channel. It's an extremely slippery slope. I'll watch videos of adorable babies holding their little feet up at 4 months. S started doing that last week. I'll see extremely precocious babies holding their weight on their little legs at 3 months or, more commonly, rolling over at 5. S isn't really interested yet, and my concerns do not afflict him. He's on no one's schedule but his own.
In his first six months of life, my son has taught me to appreciate every little squeal, every laughter, naps and even poopy diapers. Try as I might to assist him into reaching another "milestone", he'll stare back at me as if to say: Relax. Take it in. You'll miss this. He has taught me that now that he's around everything is different, and he's the one making the rules of my new life. Being in control has become just as important as learning to let go.
It all goes by too fast, as everyone truthfully says. For the past half-year I've looked forward to this moment - when I wouldn't need to sterilize bottles all the time, when he'd be able to eat solids, when I'd start getting him all the cool, bright, loud interactive toys and squeeze some extra giggles out of him. When I could try and tone down being a germaphobe, and when he'd start reaching significant milestones. Now that it's here, I wish it would slow down. Part of me looks eagerly forward to that first step; the other part truly appreciates that my son has decided to take his time, at least for now.
Two days ago S started teething, and as he cried on and off into the night it stirred up all kinds of feelings. Frustration, yes, but also the realization that this is parenthood. One day he can barely open his eyes, and a moment later his first little teeth are starting to show. No one's life, not even his, will stop for me to get my bearings and adjust to the passing of time. The flip side is that trying to soothe a crying child at 3am by any means possible is as real and as in-the-present as it gets. This, while realizing that the one thing that makes him feel better is something as simple as your smell. Realizing half-asleep that at 6 months, as from day 1, you're your little one's everything, and that he'll forever be yours, too.
Thank you, so much, to every precious moment within this half-year mark for teaching me this much.