The Top of a Roller Coaster

It’s been a while, I know, but I finally had baby girl, and she’s beautiful of course. I won’t go in to how I saw the whole Csection in the reflection of a light, or how the spinal block messed with me and made me think I was losing my mind because it messed with my spinal cord, I’ll write about that later.
Right now, I’m looking at my baby napping in her swing and thinking how it’s all going to start now.

I’ve often likened pregnancy to being on a roller coaster, you’re strapped in, ready for a ride, and if you change your mind, you can’t get off it early. Right now, however, I see a different ride ahead of me. And I see it more clearly this time around. The first few weeks after a baby is born, they don’t do much. They sleep a lot, cry, eat, poop, and don’t really do anything else. They can’t. They can’t hold their head up, they can’t see far enough to interact with their environment, they are just kinda there, this angry screaming thing that makes you yearn for sleep and question your life choices.
Then you see that first smile. That is like the safety bar locking down across your lap. It all starts here. It’s the first voluntary movement they really do. I’m not talking about a gas smile, I mean that real honest to goodness grin. Then they lift their heads a little, and then a little more, then they can roll, sit up and before you know it they are borrowing the keys to your car.

Neither of my kids are at that point, but with my first, I was so concerned that I was doing it wrong to notice time was passing us by: I had no idea what was coming next, or that the first time my baby did anything meant the end of a phase in life.
This time around I’m not terrified I’m doing something wrong, I know I am doing things wrong, but I’m secure in it. I know that she will get stronger, she will sit up, she will crawl, and gain more and more independence from us. These are all good things, but they happen faster than you notice, and once it starts, you are in for an up and down ride for life. You think the stage they are in is the best, it’s more fun, it’s harder and easier at the same time as the last stage, then comes the next and it’s infinitely more fun than the last.

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