Bye Bye Baby

Today is Georgia's second birthday. This means I no longer have any babies in my house. None. Zip. I suppose technically Georgia hasn't been a baby for quite a few months now, but since she IS the baby of the house, we kind of let her hold the title for a while. Now I have nothing but kids. On the one hand this makes me sad. On the other hand, the one where I don't have to get up and take care of a screaming infant three times a night, that hand is very happy. Plus after having my sister here a couple weeks ago with her newborn, Andy and I decided we were most definitely done with that phase of having kids. No offense to little Vivian, but I do NOT feel like going through swaddling, shushing, and dancing around the house again to get a baby to sleep, only to have her eyes pop open, five minutes after putting her down, and hearing her scream again. Nope, I do not miss those days at all. I mean they're incredibly cute when they're babies, but soooo very much work!

I will, however, miss all the firsts. Things like smiling, laughing, crawling, walking, discovering their hands and feet, all those things that make babies so damn cute. I will also miss holding them and rocking them at night. I realized this last night when I was up with Georgia at four in the morning.

I think I've mentioned a few times about my girls sleeping issues. While I don't have to get up to feed any of them, I do still get up in the middle of the night. A lot. Georgia seems to suffer from insomnia from time to time and Lana, we think, has nightmares. Therefore I'm up on and off in the middle of the night. Some weeks are worse than others. It sucks, but it's still better than a newborn waking up, because at least there ARE nights where they don't wake up at all. Luckily, Sonya sleeps like a champ and hardly ever wakes in the middle of the night.

Last night Georgia decided to remind me of what I was missing not having a newborn. She was up for about an hour, maybe more. I guess she just couldn't sleep. Maybe she was excited for her birthday today, who knows, but sleeping was not in her plan for the night. I put her in bed with us for a bit, then back to her crib. Then she wanted me to rock her. I was so tired at this point and all I wanted her to do was go back to sleep. As I sat there in the dark rocking her at four in the morning, it occurred to me that this may be one of the last times I get to do that. I don't rock Lana and certainly not Sonya anymore. Georgia is the only one who still gets use out of the rocking chair, and as she heads into her third year of life, I'm guessing she's not going to need it much longer either.

In that moment, I let go of my annoyance over being up in the middle of the night, and I relished in the moment of rocking my baby to sleep. My last baby. Well, kind of to sleep. She still didn't go to sleep for a good thirty minutes after that, but still. It's funny too, because I can remember her being so little just a month ago, or what seemed like a month ago. As she laid on me last night in the rocking chair, her body felt so heavy and big. I just don't know when that happened.

So while I'm happy to moving past babyland and into complete kiddom, I will always have great memories of my babies and all they did that amazed me... and annoyed me. I know there is so much more to look forward to in the upcoming years,(like getting rid of ALL diapers!) but there is a little part of me that will always want a baby. I'm not sure that will ever leave me. Even if I do enjoy sleeping through the night.

Happy Second Birthday Georgia. My big girl, but forever my baby!