| | Dear MPM,
My daughter just turned a year old. While I'm very proud
of her (and myself for not dropping her...often) I can't shake that
bittersweet feeling every time she hits a new milestone. The feeling
that it's all happening so fast, and someday my little baby will be
grown and we won't have what we have now. Why can't they just stay
babies till they turn eighteen and then they can move out and go to
college?
Jokes aside, I can't help but feeling a little sad when
I think of it. Is this normal or am I being ridiculous? How can I help
shake off my feeling of loving my new toddler (she took her first steps
yesterday!) but missing my tiny baby?
-Bittersweet and Sad
Dear BS,
My daughter just turned twenty-one years old, and while there are times I get nostalgic for the little girl who played Cinderella with my bright red shoes, I have adored her without regret each moment of her life (the boy, too, but I'm trying to parallel, so get over it, Tom).
You get the feeling that life goes fast? It does! And you're wasting the precious little time you've been given to thoroughly enjoy that child just as she is right now, at this moment. You are most ungrateful.
MPM isn't a religious person, but she does acknowledge her Maker, and respects those who strive to know the Ultimate Reality. And, no doubt, you know that MPM is no conservative, but years ago was a regular listener of Dr. Laura Schlessinger. One of her books talks about what she considers to be the most important of the The Ten Commandments:
#10 You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your
neighbor’s wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or
anything that belongs to your neighbor.
OK, so it would be nice to have that ox and donkey (and you probably could use a servant right now), but that is not what you've been given. And to look upon what others have, and to desire them, is to be ungrateful for the gifts God has given to you. You have a beautiful healthy daughter who wants nothing more than for her mother to love her with no strings attached --- no regrets, no "I wish you were".... what?.... a baby again? smarter? thinner? less ornery? Where does the wishing-for-things-out-of-your-control stop?
Another religion, I believe it's Zen Buddhism, exhorts its followers to focus on the present and the now. In reminiscing on the past or worrying about the future, we miss the terribly beautiful moment of now.
Enjoy that child right now and be grateful and happy for her. Otherwise you will have memories of nothing but sadness, and she will feel like a failure for never living up to her mother's unrealistic expectations of her.
One more thing: your little baby will be grown, and you won't have what you have now?
I surely hope so. Changing diapers on a twenty-one year old would suck!
~MPM
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| | Posted 7/26/2008 9:29 PM - 44 Views - 2 eProps - 1 Comment
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