My little Benny

Wow, four months. It is so incredibly hard to believe that it was four months ago that I was pushing out a baby! Ha. It seems like ages ago that I was pregnant, though my body still bears a few reminders. It seems like yesterday that Ben was so tiny, and yet it seems like a year ago, too. Those first days, weeks, and I daresay couple months were exhausting and challenging in a way that one can only survive by giving herself the greatest grace.

I have started to lose track of time, lose some of the details of the process. The first several weeks after Ben was born, not one day went by without my recalling in vivid detail every step of my arrival at the hospital, my labor, and finally, Ben's delivery... I used to be able to recount the following days in the hospital as feeding and jaundice stole my sleep, and I wanted to go home so badly. But that has all started to fade. I am trying to remember what those first days at home were like, when something as simple as using the bathroom was an undertaking. A shower was precious, a nap worth millions. I know I was miserable for awhile there, but I am completely disconnected from it now. Thankfully, those first several weeks postpartum are a huge blur (I don't think I'd be considering more children if not for the blessing of memory-wiping sleep deprivation). And my pregnancy is a distant memory.

This makes me ache. I loved being pregnant, at least the idea of it: carrying a little person inside, feeling him stretch and kick and wiggle. I loved the anticipation of it all. The preparation, the promise of what was to come. Even at the end, when I was swollen and lying around in bed for an annoying amount of time each day, I had so much to look forward to. I yearned for my baby to be born, and clung to the state of pregnancy at the same time. And as much as I KNOW I was in a sorry state after Ben was born, it makes me hurt inside to realize that those teeny tiny baby days are gone forever. He'll never wear size "nb" again. 

I find myself trying to grab ahold of time and slow it down juuuust a smidgen. I mean, I don't want to be nursing and changing diapers forever, but I can't seem to grasp the idea that Ben is on a never-stopping path to ...growing up!

*sigh*