You'll Never Be Bored Again: 1st-Year Reminiscences

The rush of baby-hood to toddler-hood and the day-to-day of being a parent is a rushing stream and I can only barely reach the branch to take a rest and feel and watch the water swirling around us.  It's difficult to stop and think:  Yes, one  year ago I was doing such-and-such with Boo.  Or: one year ago Boo was only inside me and not this active boy I see now.  Or even further beyond:  9 months before was our wedding and little did I know it was the last non-Boo moment of my life.  I hope I enjoyed the champagne and dancing that night.

Two months before Boo's due date we went to the emergency room because I was having mild contractions.  I was put on bed rest and told that I would be starting my maternity leave early.  That first week was really hard:  I felt good and had a really hard time just stopping and spending my day on the sofa.  I felt guilty: I mean, who wouldn't want a great excuse to just rest and hang-out with no responsibilities?  But sitting there for hours my anxiety grew and I was really bored, bored, bored, surfing the internet and watching brain-candy on tv.  A friend arrived on the third day with a bag of such brain-candy and told me to relax: I would never be bored again after this.  Her words ring on an almost daily basis.

As Boo's birthday arrived I realized that the day is really for us, the parents.  Coming one-year full circle I felt, really for the first time, my old self falling away.  I have become something new over the past year: a full-fledged parent.  I could feel again that same spring air that we drove through to the hospital, see the lights of the delivery room and the hospital smell of my bedroom.  I was there again, fleetingly, in those first early days.  And for the first time in a year I mourned my old life.  I mourned carefree weekends and time alone with E.  Of parties and late-night dancing.  Of jet-set life of easy,  one-bag travel.  I realized in taking that breath of reflection that that life is just gone.  Am I sorry?  No - definitely not.  But I still took the time to miss it a little.

If my life if more harried and less me-centered, it is also more rich.  E and I don't just love each other; we also love Boo.  I find that I appreciate my own parents more (especially my Mom), and have renewed affection for my brothers, for family in general.  I have made space also for my new family and Boo's family, my in-laws. I'm also more forgiving about the messiness of life and of the events that happen moment to moment:  It simply goes by so fast. 

At one year E and I can take off the "Trainee" badges and be officially parents. We navigate the current as best we can, enjoy the cool water and the passing scenery.

Comments

[parisienne mais presque]

So, so true.

I feel like I'm a better, less self-centered person since le Petit was born, and though it is trite to say it, like my life has more meaning.

But oh, how I miss being able to go out to dinner, a movie, or a concert without a second's reflection. I miss sleeping in on the weekends. And I miss being able to leave the house without being weighed down by two tons of infant gear and the vague worry I've left something important behind.

Days fly by... bored? Us?

Congrats on your first year of parenthood!