They aren’t babies for long.
It’s about a year, more or less; then they’re walking – and once they start to walk, they aren’t really little kids yet but they’re not really babies anymore, either. Once they put on a pair of long pants, and it will happen sooner than you realize, they suddenly look about three years old, maybe five.
They grow up fast.
So you have a year of about 365 feedings in the middle of the night, maybe twice that, but after a while it stops. After a while, they sleep longer and don’t require a 2am. Maybe it’s 4am or 5am, but trust me, 5am is WAY better than 2am.
I did the math, and I figured that at most there would be 1000 of these middle of the night feedings, but probably closer to 700.
That’s a lot, but…
During those 700, my daughter and I would smile in the near-dark as we made her formula, I’d hold her while she ate, and we’d watch bad TV re-runs for 20 minutes afterwards.
But we’d also share some time doing silly things that you just do while you’re doing the other stuff. 700 of anything sounds like a lot, but when you break it down, it isn’t. You get 700 of these, maybe less,
for the rest of your life,
and no more.
They will never come again. Even if you have more kids, THESE will be gone. What will you do with them? Complain? Waste them, grumbling?
I’d take the time to consider that 20 minute digestion period as a 20 minute hug, knowing full well that there would be a day when she’d be an irate teenager and wouldn’t let me hug her for anything. So, I’d have one in the bank, for that day. There’d be days when she’d be off to college and we’d miss her; I’d have one in the bank for those days.
Then there just might be a few days when I plain old missed the little tyke bouncing in her chair and smiling up at me as I made her middle of the night snack.
.
.
If you are enjoying this selection from the Savvy Stories eBook, you can own it now http://www.amazon.com/Savvy-Stories-Things-Learned-Daughter-ebook/dp/B00EUMARZM/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8
DAN ALATORRE 