My, How Time Flies

After dropping Daniel off at school this morning, I went to visit my dear friend Ali and her 2-week-old baby girl, Gabrielle. Though I'm sure the size difference would have been more startling had Daniel been with me at the time, I was quite taken aback by how small and light Gabrielle was. It is nearly impossible for me to remember how small Daniel was as a newborn. Even when I look at photos, I can't wrap my mind around what it felt like to be a new Mommy with such a tiny and precious bundle of joy. Ali is experiencing all of the first-time parent anxieties that I had, but I certainly don't feel like an expert when giving her advice. In fact, just holding baby Gabrielle made me a little nervous. Did I remember how to support a newborn's head? How would I soothe her if she started crying? Then I snapped out of my stupor and told myself, "You raised a newborn just 2 years ago. You can certainly hold one for 15 minutes!"

Ali and I talked about feeling nervous while dressing and bathing a newborn. I remember feeling like I was going to break Daniel if I tried to get his arms and legs into an outfit. Now he's such a bruiser, he barely flinches when he runs into a door. This Mommy amnesia that I'm experiencing is common. Unless you have your children a year apart (and Lord knows, I know plenty of people who did), there is a certain amount of "re-learning" that must take place when you have a newborn and your first-born is a toddler. I fully anticipate being anxious as hell when I finally have another baby. Handling a toddler, both physically and psychologically, just doesn't help when it comes to a newborn. I expect to feel like I'm starting from scratch.

The good news is, you wake up one morning and your newborn has become a fully independent toddler! My month-early, 5 pound, 15 ounce, peanut started out his life like this:


Seemingly overnight, he has grown into this:


I'm not sure how it happened.