I've mainly been using this blog as a therapist's chaise longue to process through my ED recovery lately, and that's okay.
A large part of my recovery story was and is becoming pregnant and then transforming into a mother (still doing that second part), but there are many transformation occurring within and around us all the time.
For example, my baby, my little squish, has suddenly transformed into a toddler.
I was looking the other way.
At the end of April he was still only just sixteen months. He still had all these little rolls on his arms and legs like the can of biscuits when you first open it. His head was still a little big, and he had very little hair. He slept twice a day and only woke once or twice in the night to nurse a little and then cuddle back down to sleep. He liked books, but couldn't sit still through them, and he played with toys in an abstract way picking them up and putting them down without any kind of idea what they were for. Blocks weren't for stacking so much as knocking over. Toy trucks and trains were for banging on things to make noise, etc.
Then May arrived and blew us apart with a solid five weeks of teething.
Everything went topsy turvy as my kid cut six molars in the course of a month.
Our sleep schedule shot to shit.
He ran fevers, drooled constantly, was congested, sneezing, coughing, and generally miserable. He went back to nursing several time a day to ease the pain, and he didn't play much at all. He couldn't sit still he was so uncomfortable so reading was out. We spent a lot of afternoons plonked in front of the tv watching a movie as he nursed the pain away.
I was happy I could do that much and shoved aside those feelings of guilt that I should be doing more.
Then with the beginning of June the teething ebbed away like the tide.
And strangely, it took with it the last of his babyness, leaving me with a toddler and the feeling that he had become a new animal overnight.
Suddenly he was eating a ton more food, entire hamburgers at dinner time, bagels and cream cheese for breakfast, his own portions of sweet potato and beans.
Along with the newfound appetite, his body and energy were changing. He didn't want to nap twice a day, instead sometimes he'd play through his a.m. naptime, racing around at a breakneck speed, picking up his toys and examining them with new curiosity. He began to bring me books to read aloud, only to squirm out of my lap halfway through and go to chase the cat or run a train around the floor ON ITS WHEELS like you're supposed to!
Out of nowhere he threw tantrums when I picked him up to leave the playground, wriggled out of my arms when I tried to dress him in the morning, and refused to sit down in the tub for his bath.
I felt ambushed by this new, willful child who replaced my dumpling of a boy from only two months earlier. I didn't understand that I needed to discipline him, not just keep him alive, and it blew my mind when one night after chasing him for ten minutes with a t-shirt for him to sleep in, I gave up, and he came over to me with a onesie he picked out himself which he then allowed me to snap onto his body as if to say, "i just wanted to wear this, not the one you chose."
Yet, there were huge new wonderful things about this toddler, he wrapped his arms around the back of my neck and kissed my face then leaned back and smiled at me and my whole heart exploded with love. He clung to my legs when we went to the library and there were new kids he didn't know, and he held out a hand so I could help him anytime he wanted to climb stairs or descend the steps out of our apartment. He petted the dog and giggled hysterically when she licked his face. He chased the cat, and tickled her ears, and I could tell him to be gentle and he would pet her more softly.
Then he hit a kid in the head with a toy train at the library because he didn't want to share, and the next day, he slapped another baby in the face who was trying to climb the same structure as he.
Mortified, I bundled his screaming, squirming self into the stroller and ran away, shouting apologies over my shoulder to the understanding parents, descending into a pit of shame on the walk home.
Now I have these new obstacles to surmount, screen time to police, games to supervise, and lessons to dispense. I feel as though my job as mama, all encompassing love noodle has been pulled out from underneath me and these new responsibilities thrust upon me with no warning.
Perhaps that's the riddle of parenting, just when you catch up to being what your child needs, they shoot ahead of you, and you have race to acclimate to the new thing they need you to be.
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