the lasts

Nobody warns you.

Nobody warns you about the lasts as a mother.

The last bottle. The last diaper change. The last sippy cup. The last contact nap.

The lasts.

Nobody warns you.

The other night was the last night there was a crib in this home.

Both babies are in big beds, and I wasn’t ready for all the feels.

I was not ready to look into their rooms and see each one slowly transform into a little kid room.

I wasn’t ready to see the mobile come down from slowly, twirling over Ames’s crib. Or when the Pottery Barn sheep rocker that I had bought for Lou while I was pregnant, disappear.

There are still drawers in my kitchen of bibs and burp rags, and nobody warned me that one day I would wake up and not use them anymore.

The lasts.

Nobody warns you. They just happen. Slowly and consistently.

At night, when the two of them are glistening, fresh from the bath, in their pjs, smiling at the Bluey episode we watch before books and bed, I catch myself just staring at their sweet, little faces. I catch myself trying to soak in every last bit of them, that day, that moment. The sound of their giggle, their wide eyes when surprised, the smell of their skin, their little dimple knuckles on their hands holding onto mine, all of it.

I once heard, ‘Today is as little as they’ll ever be again.’

& at the time, early into being a parent, it didn’t make any sense to me. I got stuck on the wording, being someone who writes, reads, edits, I didn’t like the way the words sounded together & moved on quickly.

But now, I get it. It makes total sense.

It’s the tagline of motherhood… parenthood… all of it.

It’s hard work, but it’s such a great life raising little humans, & it’s going way faster than I ever thought it would.

Soak it in, friends. Soak it in.