As Nova’s cries of “daddy” echo throughout the house, it’s a vivid marker of how fast she’s growing up. A month ago, she couldn’t say it. She’d wander the room going “Dada, a dada,” putting a strong emphasis on DAAAAH-dah. Now, it’s dahddeeee. I’m also starting to hear “mommy” emerge, and I can only assume it will be next.
It makes me want to cry and smile all at the same time, hearing that word. This tiny being of mine is growing rapidly, from her long legs to her clearer words. And I’m not sure I can handle the immense grief and joy that are fighting for places in my stomach, my chest, my heart.
I don’t know what to do with these feelings.
“My heart hurts,” I tell my husband one evening.
“Yeah, It’s the most bittersweet feeling in the world, watching a kid grow up.”
He knows exactly what I’m feeling. He’s been here before.
As parents, we have to reconcile how long these days seem, how difficult the nights can be, how much we just want to sleep, or shower, or find a moment for our own endeavors. But we also have to watch their lives pass rapidly — an infant turning into a toddler, far too quickly. These are truths I am trying to hold at once. They are hard and they hurt, but they are mine.
While I watch Nova doing something with a particular intensity I’ve only ever found in young kids, I get lost in her purposeful movements, in the determination in her face, in the clear intention and knowledge of what she is doing that is only for her —something I can’t figure out or touch, but can see written all over her. I watch my toddler do these tasks for ten minutes at a time, lost in her wonder.
We take walks and she insists I lift her onto the bikes locked up outside the corner bike shop, one by one she tries them, clearly wanting to be able to ride a bike right now. She points to buses and cars, dances in her stroller and tells me to dance, too. Jimmy, Raiden, and I throw ourselves on beds and she giggles endlessly. We drop toys on the floor for a game she invented, and laugh as she buries the cat in blankets. I love our life with the little one. The pure joy in just being alive, and playing silly games with loved ones, that is what she draws me into every day.
I also love my life when I have space for the other things I love to do (writing, supporting parents and learning facilitators, creating resources for those same people, the big picture ideation and the tasks of creating content for people). Sometimes, I’m glad to be in a coffee shop, away from my toddler for a few hours, writing, working, doing things that bring me back to myself in a way my little one does not.
And so my baby turns into a toddler, and I watch as her legs and arms and hands grow bigger (when did her hands get so big?), her words grow more sophisticated, and “dadda” turns into “daddy.” I can’t stop the passing of time, and I’m not even sure that I want to. All I can do is live in these moments.
Peace Everyone,
Bria