And baby makes three

Lately I’ve been reading blogs written by new parents and people with babies and toddlers at home.  It seems like a bit of a stretch since I don’t have any little ones around here and haven’t for quite some time.  Yes, I have a little grand-baby but that’s not quite the same.

Early this morning I was reading a blog and posting a comment and I realized that I was reading these blogs because they helped me remember my own kids when they were that young.  All the things I have forgotten over the years, I have a chance to relive, even momentarily, when I read about the antics of some little babies and toddlers.  It’s little things, like the fact that I put oldest girl-child into gymnastics because she wouldn’t stop climbing the face of every bookcase she came across.  I think she just climbed them so that she could throw herself off them and fall to the ground.  I figured if I couldn’t stop her, I should at least give her some skills when it came to landing without hurting herself.

Or the fact that boy-child HATED Halloween and wouldn’t dress up or go out for the longest time.  But he sure loved wearing my high heels around the house every chance he could get.  Now, he doesn’t wear my heels anymore but he lives for Halloween now that he’s experienced it as a young adult in post secondary school.

Once I remember some of these stories, I get to tell them to buddy-child who, not only is a captive audience (meaning, she has no way to get away from me), she actually likes hearing them.  I think it helps her to feel connected to my children since she’s never really lived with them and yet, she’s part of the family in a strange kind of way.

Recently I’ve been telling her the stories of when my oldest was still very sick with epilepsy and the numerous times she collapsed and smashed her head on the way down (no wonder she has brain damage!) – or the time she got smucked in the face by a basketball during grade 8 gym class because she blanked out for a minute and didn’t realize someone threw it at her – or the time she wandered away and got lost in a big box store during a Christmas rush .  For the first time in many years, just telling the stories made me anxious.  It’s funny that when we were living through it, you just do it and you put all those anxious and scared feelings aside and don’t notice them.  You can’t really because they get in the way.  Now that I’m so far removed from it, I see just how crazy it really was and realize just how amazing it is that we made it to where we are now.