07/06/2025
I’m pretty sure it was yesterday. Mayyyybe a month ago? Ok, maybe 6 months. I had a baby. He was 8lb 10oz, and he changed our lives while we changed his diapers. There were days I’d be late to work because I couldn’t bear to stop holding his chubby cheek next to mine as I sat on the bed and sang to him.
And now, but some ridiculous trick of time, this child is 6’1” and a high school graduate. I swear last month he was running through Target shooting spiderwebs at people with his 2-year-old hands. A week ago, we were spending every night at the little league fields while I chased his little brothers and missed most of the game. And now… college?! WHAT?! WHEN?! HOW?!?!
The little boy who would shove his daddy away from me and say, “that’s MY mommy” if he so much as tried to put his arm around me told me the other day when I performed my personal choreography (with a pulled back muscle for extra pizazz) to “Cool Rider” from Grease 2, “Mom, stop. No one wants to see an almost 50 year old woman do that.” First of all bro, I’m only 47. Watch it. Second of all, a la Kelly Kapoor, how dare you. I know my friends would have loved to see me limp through that performance.
It’s been such a long time since he ran to me when I walked in to pick him up from daycare and I’d catch his 4th grade self and spin him around and around like we’d been apart for weeks instead of hours. Hours and hours on the baseball field I from which I ferried him to and fro have been replaced with hours on the stage at rehearsals he drives to himself for a concert or a play. He’s following this passion to college to major in music education to inspire future generations who once shot strangers with spiderwebs in Target and only responded to their superhero names.
I’m not your only doula riding this roller coaster of the ridiculousness that is your children graduating. We have 3 graduates this year flying our coops. Our love will be spread across the world come the fall. Some nests are emptying, some nests are starting over, some are just getting smaller. It is simultaneously wonderful and heart breaking, watching those smooshy baby cheeks with chunky thighs turn into toddler legs that run away from you, then back with giggles. Those toddler legs turn into precocious preschoolers, elementary kids who lecture you about the dangers of the margarita you just ordered, “did you know alcohol is a DRUG?!?!” (thanks for looking out, kid), all while their smiles literally regenerate and they grow out of pants overnight. Then their feet become adult size - and you wonder how you thought diapers were expensive when you’re buy man-feet shoes that won’t fit in 2 months. Middle school comes, and thankfully goes (bless the middle school teachers), high school and they’re taller than you… then maybe even their dad. All this time, the hugs get fewer and farther between, and that squishy baby face is gone. But you see it there still. That baby you spent so many long nights with. Those nights and days were so, so long sometimes. And now the years? P**f. Gone. Like magic. Just the memories to hold you warm while life keeps changing.
It’s the truest cliche in parenting - the days are long and the years are short. And I have more understanding now for the grandmas who tell you to cherish every moment, and all you can think is - even those moments when you’re literally dragging your screaming 3 year old along the aisle of the grocery store as he clings to the stroller of the newborn and the 6 year old walks next to you??? How am I supposed to cherish THAT moment?! But maybe it’s those moments (which is a very true story) that will get me through this next year, because Lord knows the sweet ones are the ones will bring me to my knees as he walks away.
So, don’t mind us if we cry a little more this fall as we nuture you through your birth and postpartum. Don’t worry, we aren’t going to be here telling you to cherish every moment, because heaven knows we know how freaking hard it is. But we’ll definitely be here to hold your hand and jiggle your hips while you start your own beautiful parenting journeys.
