Tonight, I was looking at my Facebook feed and saw someone I worked with years ago post a picture of her and her husband on their wedding day. She looked so happy in her beautiful white dress, doing a sweet but posed kiss with her new husband. It was a throwback picture, as the next one was her and her husband again, this time cradling her baby bump. My first thought was “so exciting.”
And my second was, “It will never be like this again, so enjoy it now.”
Don’t get me wrong. I loved being pregnant. I love my children. I love my husband. But the innocent, stolen kisses. The spur of the moment weekends away. The carefree days and nights. All gone. It will get harder. You’ll have to remind yourself to kiss your husband goodnight. You’ll find it hard to talk about things besides the kids when you do get a dinner away. But you’ll make it. And then one day, you’ll find each other again. Your kids will be older and able to entertain themselves a bit. They’ll be desperate for time away from you too, perhaps to grandma’s house or a sleepover with a friend. But they’ll always come back so happy to see you.
But your one constant, your one love before you were Mom and Dad, was your partner.
So hang in there. Find a minute to hold hands. It was the two of you before, and it will be the two of you always. Protect that love. Know it changes as the years go on, but nurture it, respect it, and preserve it.
This month my husband and I will celebrate 17 years of marriage, and it’s amazing to look back at so many seasons of our life together. We had so many fun adventures. Just thinking about them makes me long (just a little) for those days. But then my sleepy 5-year-old climbs in my bed at 6 a.m. to cuddle, and I remember that we didn’t lose anything; we gained a whole lot, just with some challenges. As my kids get older, I am hopeful that we will be able to do more of the spur-of-the-moment adventures that we used to do.
But for now, we’ll bond over tough bedtimes (which is every single bedtime, btw. I’ll accept all tips and tricks for an easier bedtime routine!), tantrums, and picky eating at dinner time. We’ll roll our eyes at the same time when the kids say they’re bored because the playset, trampoline, and giant Connect 4 game in the backyard isn’t enough.
And we’ll enjoy staying up way too late every night to have a few moments of peace before we do it all over again. This season of our life is all chaos, all the time. But when all is said and done, it’s still just him and me.
