I recently sent out invitations for my son’s fourth birthday. A short time after I got a text from my best friend saying, “I can’t believe Jackson will be four. How did our baby become four?” This really hit me. How did it happen so fast that my last baby is no longer a baby?
My Last Baby’s First Year
Jackson is my second child. He is also our last child. It feels like just yesterday when I was in newborn zombie land. When I was permanently sitting on the same kitchen chair with the bouncy seat next to me. Just hoping he would sleep so I could lay down and take a nap after a night of feedings. Being in that tough time of not getting sleep and just learning the quirks of your new baby you feel like you’ll never get out.
At his two week well visit his pediatrician asked me how I was doing because she said two weeks is usually when family stops visiting and food stops being offered. I remember thinking that was true, but then I also had an overwhelming sensation of, “Oh my God he’s only two weeks old. I have SO much longer to go!”
For all parents’ sanity the newborn phase doesn’t last long, and once sleep comes back into the picture the days seem more and more bearable. Before I knew it I had this chunky little baby who was smiling, laughing and crawling around the house. Every day we would learn new things about him and just start to see his personality shine through.
Then July 10th had come and my baby was one year old. I was that mom who took the monthly progress pictures of his growth and strung them all together for his first birthday party. I couldn’t believe how big he had gotten and how much he changed, but more than that I couldn’t believe how fast it went!
The Last Two Years
After Jackson turned one everything just went at warped speed. He was walking, talking and playing. When he turned two he started going to school one day a week. It was the first time he had left my side (with the exception of a sitter) since he had been born. I thought for sure he would be so upset, but he just walked into his classroom, waved goodbye and went about his day. Like my daughter, he required speech therapy but he was always so communicative. I would pick him up from school and have little conversations about how his day went.
Before I knew July 10th rolled around for the third time and my toddler was turning three. How did this happen? How did we go from the terrible twos to the terrifying threes so fast? The September after he turned three he started pre-school. Since he receives speech and OT services he was eligible for bus transportation. He is a car, truck, train and construction enthusiast so he was happy about this. I put my baby boy on the bus on the first day of school at 11:30 in the morning and didn’t see him again until 4 p.m. I can’t describe the craziness of the school year, but let me tell you – time flies! Once Jackson started going to school everyday it was like blinking through the months. Everything just went so fast.
My Baby Is Four
Once again, July 10th is here and my last baby is four years old. A baby by nobody’s standards. He’s a big boy in a big boy bed and out of a diaper. This will be his last year in pre-school and then he’s off to full day kindergarten. I know from my daughter being in school that once full day elementary school starts time just slips away from you.
There is a big age gap between my son and daughter. I like to believe everything happens for a reason. I believe that we waited so long to have another baby, because we were waiting just for him. He completes our family and I couldn’t imagine what life would be like without him. There is a saying that, “The days are long and the years are short.” I can’t think of anything more fitting to describe how I feel about my last baby no longer being a baby.
