Time Flies When Your Sleep Deprived
My little one turned 6 months old this week. All day long I kept thinking about the Alice and Wonderland scene where the Mad Hatter sang “a very mery unbirthday to you”. But it made me think of how fast it has all happened and how quickly it goes. Everyone says that, time flies and you know they are right, but when you are in the thick of it you can’t see it. Until there is a milestone or a “unbirthday” of importance and you realize WOW did 6 months really just happen? Did I really go through the infancy of a child and make it out on the other end?
I smiled when I thought up this title only becuase I don’t think I’ve slept for 9 consecutive hours but once in 6 months. I spent at least 3 months getting only 4 – 5 consecutive hours and now I average 7 hours a night. I am always tired, always! I don’t even think that its so much I need more than 7 hours of sleep a night than once in a while I need to sleep until MY body wakes me up, not when his body wakes me up. Plus tack on the responsibilities of being a parent and I basically feel like I got hit by a truck after having gotten no sleep. Ahh the joys of parenthood. Six months done the rest of my life to get through.
When you are exhausted and overwhelmed you can forget how precious each day is. He will never be six months old again. Already gone are the truly baby days, the baby burrito who sleeps 18 hours a day only needs to eat and will still be in the same place you left him if you go to the bathroom. Now replaced with a baby who can sit up on his own, wants and needs to interact with the world and literally yells at me if I’m not doing what he wants me to do fast enough. Still sweet days, but different, as the next six months will be. Pretty soon I’ll be chasing a toddler around the room, praying for less sleep if only I could sit down for 2 minutes.
Its all precious though and its all fleeting. Lots of people say that when you become a parent you appreciate your parents more for knowing what they went through. I cannot imagine my child grown, I can’t imagine him anything except a baby. I think I understand now the parents who hold on to their kids too tightly and try to keep them little for longer than they should. I don’t agree with it and I’ll try not to do it. But I want to hold him like he’s a baby, which by the way he put an end to like 2 months in. I want him to be little and to let me hold and cuddle him for as long as I can. Because it won’t always be this sweet it won’t always be this loving and I won’t always have this relationship with him.
Every day is important, every day is meaningful, birthday or unbirthday we should all remember how lucky we are every day.
