Since becoming a parent, there are a ton of things people say to me now that I rarely heard before. Cliché sayings are all the rage when you are talking to other parents, and with folks repeating to you the words uttered to them time and time again when they became newbies.
There is one particular phrase of unsolicited advice that all seasoned mommies give to new moms they meet. “Enjoy it while you can…they grow so fast that childhood will be over in a blink of an eye”. Now, anyone who has sat up with a newborn through colic, or waited for a child to get over a cold, or even prayed for a favorable learning curve for their kid when it comes to potty training knows that sometimes childhood feels like it will be around FOREVER. And generally that’s what I thought whenever someone said this to me…until this weekend.
I probably need to give background – Roman has become a very “mobile” baby in the last few weeks. Rolling, crawling, grabbing even pulling up are now daily routines versus occasional practices as before. While we were playing in the living room Monday, Roman was trying to go from sitting to crawling by reaching towards his feet. He was almost there, toes almost in mouth too, when he instead tumbled forward onto his face. Now, he was only 2-3 inches off the ground, and I think he was more surprised than hurt, but he did his patented cry that is all open mouth and red face with no sound. This has been a Roman staple since he was born and usually lasts a few seconds – max. This cry, however, was stifled in his chest for what seemed like 10-15 seconds easily. Then, when it broke and he seemed ready to wail, he instead fell limp in my arms as if he had fallen unconscious.
Panic has never entered my body so quickly, nor taken over every fiber of my being so completely as it did at that moment. Things flashed before me that no mother ever wants to consider – is he paralyzed? did he do damage to his brain? God forbid – is he dead? I couldn’t process things fast enough and all I could think was that I would not be able to recover if my son died in my arms that day.
In the end, he wasn’t brain dead or unconscious – he had only briefly fainted. I patted his back and screamed his name and within moments his eyes sprung open like a doll and he was crying with lungs full of air. Turns out, when babies hold their breath like that in a cry, they often forget to breathe and hold their breath long enough for them to faint. Though not dangerous, it is completely nerve wrecking to a parent, especially when you don’t know about it in advance. What’s more nerve wrecking, though, is the thought that somehow this person who has been in your life for such a short amount of would no longer be there anymore. And it makes you recognize that your life will never be the same again. You will never think of just yourself and your choices and mistakes will never again just be your own. It took 9 months for this child to be in my arms, but in the blink of an eye, he could be gone forever – and THAT is what every mother should learn to appreciate while she can.
There is one particular phrase of unsolicited advice that all seasoned mommies give to new moms they meet. “Enjoy it while you can…they grow so fast that childhood will be over in a blink of an eye”. Now, anyone who has sat up with a newborn through colic, or waited for a child to get over a cold, or even prayed for a favorable learning curve for their kid when it comes to potty training knows that sometimes childhood feels like it will be around FOREVER. And generally that’s what I thought whenever someone said this to me…until this weekend.I probably need to give background – Roman has become a very “mobile” baby in the last few weeks. Rolling, crawling, grabbing even pulling up are now daily routines versus occasional practices as before. While we were playing in the living room Monday, Roman was trying to go from sitting to crawling by reaching towards his feet. He was almost there, toes almost in mouth too, when he instead tumbled forward onto his face. Now, he was only 2-3 inches off the ground, and I think he was more surprised than hurt, but he did his patented cry that is all open mouth and red face with no sound. This has been a Roman staple since he was born and usually lasts a few seconds – max. This cry, however, was stifled in his chest for what seemed like 10-15 seconds easily. Then, when it broke and he seemed ready to wail, he instead fell limp in my arms as if he had fallen unconscious.
Panic has never entered my body so quickly, nor taken over every fiber of my being so completely as it did at that moment. Things flashed before me that no mother ever wants to consider – is he paralyzed? did he do damage to his brain? God forbid – is he dead? I couldn’t process things fast enough and all I could think was that I would not be able to recover if my son died in my arms that day.
In the end, he wasn’t brain dead or unconscious – he had only briefly fainted. I patted his back and screamed his name and within moments his eyes sprung open like a doll and he was crying with lungs full of air. Turns out, when babies hold their breath like that in a cry, they often forget to breathe and hold their breath long enough for them to faint. Though not dangerous, it is completely nerve wrecking to a parent, especially when you don’t know about it in advance. What’s more nerve wrecking, though, is the thought that somehow this person who has been in your life for such a short amount of would no longer be there anymore. And it makes you recognize that your life will never be the same again. You will never think of just yourself and your choices and mistakes will never again just be your own. It took 9 months for this child to be in my arms, but in the blink of an eye, he could be gone forever – and THAT is what every mother should learn to appreciate while she can.
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