It's actually a pretty challenging time for me, closing doors on the past and preparing for what comes next.
Nine years ago, I was in the biggest transition of my life. I'd left full-time employment at a bank and brought home a newborn son, becoming a stay-at-home mom overnight. I couldn't really express all the highs and lows I was going through, and I certainly didn't have anyone to whom I could say these things out loud.
Some days I wanted to go back to work just to talk with my co-workers, women who had served as a sounding board and advised me on so many smaller changes. I longed for all the pleasant parts of my previous life: adult conversations and earning a paycheck. And lunch breaks!! How I missed those thirty minutes of quiet.
Instead, I was nursing a child who ate round-the-clock (you don't double your birth weight in two months by slacking in this area), adjusting to the constant touch and demands on my person. I think the hardest part of being an introvert mom is just how much time is spent in the presence of your children. I wanted to scream, "Leave me alone! Nobody touch me for the next hour!"
One thing I did enjoy was setting up our new baby's nursery. We moved into our house when he was six months old, and I painted his new room and bright, cheerful yellow, with soft white curtains on the windows, bright sheets in the crib, and playful pictures on the walls. It's a small room, 9 feet by 9 feet, and it was just the right size to fit my babies as they came along, 1 2 3. Each would transition to a big-boy bed when the next baby boy arrived, and I would lovingly fold the tiny clothes and put them away in the dresser.
So much has happened in nine years. I am no longer ankle-deep in babies and toddlers. My days no longer consist of an Elmo video, a walk around the neighborhood, home for lunch, and hey! it's nap time! We have moved on to bike rides and swim lessons and Marvel heroes. Questions that range from the annoying ("Why did you drive this way?") to the thought-provoking ("Are police the good guys?") to the down-right incomprehensible ("When you are a baby, will I have to change your diaper?").
The crib is gone, the changing table is obsolete, and the tiny clothes are packed away in storage bins. I don't want this time to be over. (Seriously, if anyone wants to give me a baby, I will take him no questions asked...) Somedays, I actually miss the life I used to have, the one full of crying infants and spilled drinks and blowout diapers. I haven't wanted to let it go.
But this week, the time has come to say goodbye. Our little yellow room no longer works for our family. So I'm turning it into a purple "Homework Room", with desks and books and educational artwork.
Part of me knows that this is a necessary change, good even. We have been blessed with three healthy children who are growing up, who are learning to read and add and figure things out for themselves. It also means new freedoms and opportunities for me, a chance to write and create and remember who I am independent of all of this.
Still...it's hard to close that door.
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