A Moment

I really don't have time to be posting right now, but I need to take just a moment to write down some thoughts I had today and tell a little story that happened last week before I forget about it.

Today something happened. It's kind of a joyous thing and kind of a sad thing (for me anyway). Lena rolled over for the first time. Those of you without children or those of you that are not done having children are probably thinking 'no big deal, Audra.' But, for me...well, let's just say I may or may not have shed a tear or two. Why? Because rolling over is the beginning of the end of babyhood. I'm happy that Lena is conquering milestones, that means she is growing and learning what she is supposed to at this stage of her life. I want a thriving baby. But, I cried because I just can't seem to wrap my brain around the fact that she will not be this little forever. I feel like my life has been one big whirlwind of stress and change for the past 7 months. I mean, honestly, back in the beginning of December I never could have imagined all that has happened in our family in the past few months. In December we were in Raleigh, happy as can be and planning to spend the rest of our lives there. Here we are 8 months later, we've moved to Virginia Beach, Dylan started preschool, we had a baby, I had surgery, Mike accepted a different job offer, I'm packing AGAIN and our family is splitting up while we're trying to find a place to live. Poor Dylan, this will be his 5th house and he's not even 4 years old. With all this going on, I feel like I haven't had time to catch my breath, let alone sit back and take some time to enjoy every little moment with my children. I kind of feel cheated because I've been so preoccupied with other things. I'm missing out on what should be a really happy time with my kids. I REALLY hope that Michigan will provide us an opportunity to settle in somewhere and actually LIVE our lives. I don't want to waste their childhood stressing about life events. So, yeah, I cried because my baby girl rolled over.

That being said, God has, on occasion slapped me across the face to remind me how great my life is. I typically spend the 2nd half of every night sleeping on the twin bed in Lena's room. She tends to fuss a lot after 1am and it's just easier to sleep in there so I can pop a paci back in her mouth. One night last week, I heard her start fussing over the monitor so I went through my routine of turning it off and head up the stairs to her room (side note: I'm not a fan of my bedroom being on a different floor from the kids). Most nights I keep her door shut because Dylan sleeps with his open and I don't want her fussing to wake him up. So, I get to the top of the stairs and walk into her room. As I walk in, I realize that her door was wide open...not how I left it. I'm terribly paranoid about someone entering my home while we're sleeping, so this kind of freaked me out for a moment. I turned around and walked through the upstairs to make sure everything else was in order. Nothing alarmed me, so I went back in her room, walked over to the crib and popped the binky in her mouth. Then I walked over to the bed, set my phone down on the side table and proceeded to get into the bed. As I reached for the covers, I realized that there was a lump on the bed. It was Dylan. I thought, awww, cute...not knowing if he was in there because I usually sleep there or if he wanted to be with Lena. I just went and climbed in his bed because he was sleeping so peacefully (and by that I mean sawing logs, lol). Around 5:30am I heard Lena start fussing again, so I went into her room to do the binky thing again. This time, however, I saw Dylan standing at the crib shushing her and trying to reach the binky to put it in her mouth. When he saw me he said "Mommy, are you mad at me?" (Usually I'm kind of angry when he's out of bed before the sun rises). I told him I wasn't mad, but that he needed to go back to sleep. Instead of putting him back in the bed in Lena's room, I grabbed his hand and took him to his room and I climbed in bed with him. Dylan then said, "Mommy, let's hold hands like we used to. I'm sorry for being out of bed...I just didn't want sissy to be lonely all by herself."
Oh.My.Gosh. Talk about melting my heart. I may have shed a tear then, too.