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Life with Levi
Stay little
By Amanda Rodeheffer-Olson
Assistant Editor
To most, last Tuesday, April 16th was just another day.
And to me, it really didn’t hold much significance at first
glance. But once I stopped for a minute and thought about it, it
finally hit me.
Last Tuesday, April 16th was exactly one month before Levi’s second
birthday.
I know, I’m probably being overly dramatic. But for a new (or newer)
Mommy like me, it was a big deal! Levi has only celebrated one birthday
so far, so it’s not exactly a ho-hum kind of thing for me yet. My baby
will be another year older… In less than a month!
We’re planning a party for him, so there’s the stress of pulling all of
that together, but when my moment of realization hit me, the party had
no bearing on my feelings about April 16th. All I was thinking about is
how fast time is flying by, and how my little boy isn’t going to be
very little for much longer.
Believe me, I’m so proud of my growing boy. It seems like every day he
is doing something new to amaze me (or on some days, just make me shake
my head and make a note to tell Daddy to not do whatever Levi did in
front of Levi).
But some days, proud as I am, I just want for him to stay little. Stay
the way he is for just a little while longer. Because it seems like
he’s growing so fast, that Mommy can’t keep track of all the new things
he’s learning and doing. And I desperately want to hold on to all of
those moments.
I hear from other moms how their kids are growing so fast, and how it
seems like just yesterday that they were Levi’s age. And that now
they’re riding a bike. Or starting school. Or graduating from high
school, like my little sister is this year.
Time is going so fast it seems, and I’m afraid that one day I’ll wake
up and Levi will be getting on the bus for school. I know I have a
while, but the day is coming, and I know it is. I think that the worst
part is knowing that it’s coming and knowing that I can’t do anything
to slow things down.
I keep thinking back to when Levi was a newborn, and all he did was
eat, sleep and poop. And I remember thinking then how quickly he was
changing, and how I wanted him to stay little.
Fast forward to now and I’m trying to figure out when I blinked and
seemed to miss everything in between. I mean, I was there for all of
his firsts, but most of his firsts are over now. And I can’t experience
them with him again. He’s already onto the next thing, the next step in
a long line of steps that lead him away from me.
While I want him to grow up to be a good man like his Daddy, I also
want him to not grow up. To stay my little boy. And while I wish with
everything that I have that he can stay little, I know that he can’t.
He’s going to grow up. It’s inevitable.
So right now, I’m trying to focus on the now, on who he is in this
moment. Because in the next moment, he’s going to be someone different.
With everything he learns, he changes and evolves into the person he
will be. And it scares Mommy to death how fast he’s changing right now.
Because every day he gets closer and closer to being a
two-year-old. And for some reason, I’ve always thought of age two
as being the cutoff line between baby and toddler. So in less than a
month, my baby will be a toddler. And I’m just not ready for that yet.
So as I count down the days until Levi turns two, I’m trying so hard to
hold on to each moment because I know that there will never be another
one just like it.
And right now, we’re at 23 days and counting… 23 more days for Mommy to
adjust to the idea of her baby being another year older.
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