The Land of One

Your children are the greatest gift God will give to you, and their souls the heaviest responsibility He will place in your hands. Take time with them, teach them to have faith in God. Be a person in whom they can have faith. When you are old, nothing else you've done will have mattered as much. 
~ Lisa Wingate

My time in the Land of 1 is coming to an end. 

It feels like yesterday that we brought her home from the hospital, Carl driving 10 miles under, me with my arm stretched as far as it would go, to reach into her car seat and hold an impossibly tiny hand.  It feels like this morning, I woke up to a cooing infant, around snack time that she was crawling at lunch; it seems she was just turning 1 when I land her down for a nap.  And in a few minutes, when she is tired of playing in her crib, I will go get my nearly 2 year old, and feed her raisins and juice.  Or whatever she wants for a snack.

I have just gotten one down, I just now understanding the routines and the wants and the needs, I have just gotten used to sleeping with a one year old, teaching her, feeding her, and now, she will turn 2, and everything will change.  I know it won’t change overnight, but faster than I can adjust, she will change.

I want her to slow down.  I need more time with her balanced on my hip, sleeping in footed pajamas, sleeping with pacifiers and special blankets and loveys and baby dolls.  I need more time to comb her curly hair into tiny pig tails, to lead her by the hand, to tie her shoes and put on dresses with tiny buttons on during a rainy day, just because we can.

One is hovering on the edge between baby and child.  One still has vestiges of baby fat clinging to cheeks, and a round belly peeking out over pants, and a need for a lovey in the middle of the night.  One still wants to be rocked to sleep, one still wants to be held and snuggled. 

Two will bring more independence, two will cut more strings, two will push the baby she was further into my memories, and bring me the child is becoming.  Two has already brought me temper tantrums, and I would like to return those as soon as possible.

I am not ready for two.  But my child is, she is hurtling through life as fast as she can, regardless of the skinned knees and bumps and bruises.  She is pulling away for her independence, and taking more of it than she should have. 

I need more time I need more than a few weeks in the land of one.  I need another year, to be in the land of naps and diapers, graham crackers and string cheese, pacifiers and loveys, blankets and snuggles.

My baby is in the land of one, and sooner than my heart is prepared for, my child will lead me in to the land of two.

~Jennifer