When my son was about 2 years old I was walking home from work one day and decided to stop at a clothing store to get my son some new clothes. So, I was browsing around in the kids department and found a couple of outfits. I got two identical outfits because they were on sale in two different sizes so I got his size that he wore at the time then went up a size. I figured at 2 he would care less and I was saving a dollar we both win. I was thinking go me!!!
I get to the register and the woman who was slightly older she looked at me over the top of her glasses and she reminded me of my math teacher in the 4th grade. She asked me how many kids I had. At first I thought it was an odd question then I thought she was being nosey like people are. So, I almost called her by old teachers name, Mrs. Buick, and I told her one. She said twins? I was thinking did she hear me? I repeated myself and said no, just one. I started digging in my giant bag that was a tote bag which doubled as a purse looking for the cash to pay for clothes for my "twins" and I pulled out two little balls, one sucker, two hot wheels cars, an old teething ring and something which had turned green or was already green naturally I couldn't tell. Since I was holding up the line with all my digging for my wallet the cashier sighed loudly twice, the woman behind me totally understood since she actually did have twins and a 3 year old.
That was the moment I realized how much my life had changed. As I threw everything back in my bag including the bag of clothes I happily walked home with all my treasures, old and new.
And almost ten years later if you look in my bag you will probably see some stuff that belongs to my son. And there's nothing wrong with that.
Today I experienced Motherhood at 76. I visited my mom in the nursing home where she is recovering from a broken hip and hopefully will be returning home sometime this week. So, today the roles were sort of reversed. I took care of her and I was thinking this is how she probably took care of me when I was younger. I had to convince her to eat the lunch that they provided for her. Even though she complained that she didn't like the food because it was bland and tasteless, almost like I used to complain about not wanting to eat my vegetables when I was younger, I did manage to bribe her to take a few bites promising her dessert later. Yes, just like she used to do to me sometimes but her dessert was something like custard with a crust not appealing to me or her but nonetheless she managed to scarf down a few tiny bites before she said she had had enough. She also had enough of the bland ice tea that they served with it so I gave her some sprite instead which they said she could have. Hot sprite beats bland ice tea any day in her book.
So, as my son was helping her manage the sprite, holding the straw in place for her and telling her to take tiny sips at a time I sat there and thought back to all the times I had told him the same exact thing when he was sick, which thank goodness was not that often, and now he was telling her and helping her when she is sick. He was also hovering like a "daddy bird" around her and wouldn't let her lift a muscle to do anything and was getting nervous when she tried to lean a little too forward in the wheel chair which she said was the most uncomfortable chair she had ever had the misfortune of sitting in. My son tested that out when she got back in bed for a short nap. He thought it was an awesome chair because it had wheels, that was no surprise to me.
I watched these two for a long time today, just watching and observing and thinking and by the time lunch was done and meds were taken and my mom was trying to rest in the mists of all the yelling in the halls, loud conversations, alarms going off, one of them hers, and all the hustle and bustle of these places, I came to realize that motherhood for me has come full circle. I was a mom at 41 and my mom was a mom at 26. Since I don't have a daughter, I won't be able to watch her be a mom but I think that my son will make a darn good parent some day.
As I get older I never really have thought about what that all means. I know that the number changes every year and the candles on the cake grow and they grow so much that you just don't want to set the cake on fire so you use the two numbers sometimes to make your age. I never really thought about what it is really like getting old. I guess I only concentrated in the moment and never really looked into the future too much. Aging never really bothered me at all. I would say oh it is just a number but I found out this week just how that number can affect your quality of life.
My mom had me when she was 25 a few months from her 26th birthday so she is going to be 76 on her birthday in October. I recently noticed her aging sort of slowing down in many ways. Walking slower, talking slower and more deliberately sometimes. Sometimes she would have to think a few more seconds to answer a question and I thought that is all a part of aging. I was thinking that in about 25 years give or take a year or two that I could be her, walking slower, hesitating more with my speech and getting a few more wrinkles and graying of the hair and thinner bones. She is a beautiful woman to me and always will be. Then something happened that scared me. She went to the hospital. She hates hospitals with a passion and anyone who knows her knows that. So, it was scary for me and her when that night I had to call 911 because I thought she was having a stroke. Unfortunately, I was right she had a small stroke but then she suffered another injury while in the hospital a broken hip. I realized how fragile she is and how fragile life is. I realized that I can't take her for granted any more and just assume that she will be here for the next 5 or ten or fifteen years. I can't assume that she will see my son graduate from junior high or even high school in 8 years. I think that my life and her life flashed right before my eyes that night as the paramedics loaded her into the ambulance and took her away.
Today I visited her at the nursing home where she is recovering from the hip. Today I saw an much older woman, a woman with more wrinkles and more lines from life that I had ever noticed before. I noticed her thinning hair and more grey hairs then before. I noticed her demeanor was not the same. Her laughter was gone. Her smile was gone. Her words were there but her memory was confused sometimes and she thought she was at home in the comfort of her own bed, watching her own television. She wanted her red sweater, the one she wears when she gets cold. She didn't want strangers parading in and out of her room, poking and prodding her like she was just a piece of meat. She didn't like sitting in a room that was not her own. She didn't like not waking up in her own bed in the mornings and eating her own breakfast not some tasteless food that is placed in front of you and if you eat it you eat it and if you don't they can care less and remove the food when your time was up. She doesn't like a time limit and wearing a diaper not being able to walk to the bathroom and having to look at her roommate using the portable potty in the corner of the room. This is not her idea of spending one minute of her golden years in a room she doesn't recognize with people she doesn't know coming and going.
I had to be her voice today and I had to be a loud, bossy, bold voice today. I will always be her voice when she looses hers. I hope that she never does and when these dreadful two weeks are over by some little miracle she returns to us as good as she left us.
Now, I know what getting older is about. I have taken off my rose colored glasses today.
The first year is what I call the year of no sleep. But it was filled with first foods, walking, crawling, no more bottles ( for the most part. We still had the occasional bottle before nap time and bed time against all advice from the know it all moms) but sippy cups were his favorite thing to drink out of, and he loved Cheerios. We got rid of the baby swing he out grew and the bassinet was a distant memory. Our lives were filled with walks to the park around the corner, playtime with other toddlers at the park, and toddler proofing everything in the house.
His first birthday fast approaching. Everyone kept asking me what his theme was going to be for his party. When I looked at them like you gotta be kidding they apparently felt the need to school me about first birthday parties themes. One of my friends was having a Winnie the Pooh theme party, one was having a Sesame Street party which she had been planning for 7 months. A friend of a friend was having a princess themed party for her daughter which was booked 10 months in advance. ( so like when she was 2 months old, the baby) The only thing I wanted to do when my won was 2 months old was sleep for more then 4 hours. The last thing on my mind was party planning.
I always thought a cake, a gift and a couple of balloons would be good. Never did I dream a one year old needed a theme party. I thought only celebrities did that cause they had money to do it.
Guess I was out of the loop.
Well, what had happened the week of my sons birthday was nothing I could have predicted. My grandmother died 7 days before his first birthday. Her funeral was going to be on his birthday. I didn't have a theme nor was in the frame of mind for a theme. That day after the funeral after we came home I took out the small birthday cake I brought the day before and the balloon which I tied to his highchair. He ate his cake, a piece of his cake, got chocolate all over his face and hands and I clicked off a few pictures and his first birthday was a rap forever immortalized in a million pictures.
No theme necessary, just a happy one year old.
Someone told me that by the time her baby was 6 months old he slept through the night. Another mom bragged her daughter slept through the night at 5 months. I looked at my son who was older then both of those babies at 7 months and he had yet to sleep through the night. He would sleep through most of the night and would wake up once. I would change and feed him and back to sleep he would go. I was starting to think he was falling behind the other babies.
I asked his doctor if this was normal and the doctor assured me nothing was wrong with him after about the fifth phone call to his office he said to relax more and just enjoy these moments because they don't last long. So, I tried. And I decided he was right I need to capture as much as I could of his babyhood which was slowly slipping away. I was thinking in 4 short months he would be a whole year old then two and three and then pre-school and college would not be far away.
I brought the best camera I could afford on Amazon. It wasn't expensive but better then the throw away cameras I got at Walgreen's. I was on a mission to capture every smile, frown, funny face, laugh I could. And then something incredible happened. At 8.5 months just when I was getting the hang of trying to capture every little thing he started walking. I cried tears of joy and sadness. My baby was growing up too fast. And a month later he was running.
