It Won't Be Like This For Long

7:50 P.M on Wednesday, December 2nd....just got done rocking my baby girl and then went to put her in her crib and she clung onto me so tight and pushed her body against mine and away from her crib when I tried to lay her down. The stages that she has gone through have all been so different. This one is definitely bittersweet. Separation Anxiety. That's what they call it. She wants to be right up under me at all times. In the morning when I wake her up and she is in the bed watching cartoons with Nick and drinking her milk and eating her eggs, muffin, or oatmeal...if I walk out of the room I immediately hear "Mama"...it continues as I put her in her carseat and go to get in the driver's seat..."Mama"...then at daycare when she knows what is about to happen...I put her down from my arms so I can put her cooler bag in the fridge...and she knows...her sweet chubby arms reach right up to me and her sad little voice cries "Mama"...I scoop her back up in my arms and hold onto her as tight as she is holding onto me. I don't want to let her go. I don't ever want to let her go. I hug her close and walk over to her room and put her diaper bag in her cubby and I try to talk to her about her friends at 'school' and the fun they will have playing with their toys...hoping this will distract her...this will distract me from what is about to happen. We walk by the glass and see her reflection and she smiles. I tell her how pretty she looks and how much I like her bow. Her precious smile just beams back in the reflection. We walk over to the room where I drop her off. She knows. She starts to squirm in my arms because she knows. She does not want me to let her down out of my arms. She starts whining and muttering "Mama" in her sad, but sweet, oh so sweet voice. I either put her down with some toys or I hand her over to Ms. Carrie. Her sweet face looking at me like she just doesn't know why I am leaving her. Why I am going away. I tell her bye and blow her a kiss and tell her I love her. I leave with my shoulders down and already anticipating the day ahead and how long I am going to be away from her. The different stages that she has gone through have been all so unique and different. Some of course a little easier than others. The more days that pass by...the bigger she feels when I hold her...make me allow my mind time to think back to times when she was just a few months old. It was all so new. Everything was so new and so scary. I constantly questioned myself if I was doing the 'right thing'. I always thought that if Lilly was crying then it meant I wasn't doing something 'right'. I always thought her every cry and sign of discomfort was because of something I was or was not doing. My personality is one that likes to have complete control of every situation and circumstance. If something is out of my control then it is hard for me to be OK with it. Nick and I can laugh now about the day at the hospital when we had signed our release papers and were told we could leave the hospital and take Lilly home. We were packed up and ready to go and she started crying so hard. I told Nick we could not walk out of our room and down the hospital hallways if she was crying. I had no idea what was wrong with her and I had no idea what to do to get her to stop crying. She had a dry diaper and she had just been fed. What else could she need? I remember begging Nick to go get a nurse to help us. Finally she stopped crying. We walked out of the hospital doors and I was a ball of nerves the whole way to the car. Then putting her in the car seat. Ah. I remember she looked so small. So tiny. So fragile. At home we were clueless and helpless. It makes me laugh now thinking about it. I wish we had a video camera so we could watch ourselves now. One stage I don't miss was when she would scream and cry at night and was inconsolable. We could not figure out what was wrong with her. I asked all of my friends what to do and they all gave me advice that had worked for them...Gas Drops...Colic Drops...all kinds of different things to try.

Well almost two months has passed by since I started writing this post. I got too sleepy that night to finish it and then well...now it's January 22, 2016. ;)
So much has happened...we moved in with David and Joy and closed with the buyers on our first home on December 15th. It was such a bittersweet day for sure. Crazy how sentimental a home can be. I found myself telling them all about the precious neighbors that we have there and how and where we would put our Christmas tree in the living room. (I am sure they really wanted to hear all of those things! ;-)) I felt somewhat "homeless"when I drove out of the parking lot that day. Leaving work that first week felt strange not driving to our 'home". I picked Lilly up from daycare and my first instinct was to drive to our house. But we didn't have one of our own to go to. I kind of felt lost. As the days passed by I got into a routine of driving to our 'temporary home'. It has been a lot of fun spending time with Joy and David. They love looking forward to seeing Lilly every day and participating in her daily routines, dinner, bath, night time kisses...and Poppy will play the guitar for her after her bath and she will dance naked to his same guitar tune just about every night. We then go down to our basement apartment. I rock her in the same chair from her nursery and Nick reads her a bible story. Then we say our prayers. I take her to her crib to lay her down after singing a few songs to her (depending on how many she is in the mood to listen to me horribly but wholeheartedly sing to her;)). Her crib is in her their pool room. It was not a bad transition at all for her. She is actually sleeping in a crib that Nick, Josh, and Jacob once slept in! So it is pretty special!! It doesn't take her long to doze off to dreamland. I go to the sink and wash her cups and containers from daycare and get things ready for the next day. Daycare bag packed up blankets and snacks. In the morning when she wakes up she loves to look around the room and say "Poppy"when she sees all of the pictures on the wall of David. She also thinks that 'mommy' is a guy with big, frizzy, black hair from the 70's holding a guitar. I just laugh. She finds the balloon on a ticket that is a collage on the wall. These things that she loves to find and point out are far from what she was used to in her nursery. She would point out the 'birds' and 'babies''. :)
It has been a lot of fun watching our house from the ground up! Amazing transformation!! What an experience!!! We ask Lilly if she wants to go see our 'house' and so she has learned  the word 'house'. When she looks at pictures on our phones of our house she says 'house'. Choosing paint colors, stone, knobs, wood floor, tile, all of that stuff has been A LOT! Headaches at times and fun at other times! Going to Lowe's was our frequent weekend shopping trip. Sometimes we disagreed and it ended up in giving each other the silent treatment for a few minutes and other times we just decided to agree to disagree.
This post has the same theme in what we have experienced in our lives. Daris Rucker sang it best "It Won't Be Like This for Long". Before he sang it...God's word revealed it to us...

Ecclesiastes 3

3 To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:

2 A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;

3 A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;

4 A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;

5 A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;

6 A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;

7 A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;

8 A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.