New Mummy Blog: Why I Cried On My Son's First Birthday
On my child’s first birthday I woke up and burst into tears.
You’d think I was the baby. What right did I have to feel sad? None, of course. Here my healthy, happy boy was reaching this milestone. We’d survived! And he’s thriving.
It was happy-sadness, of course, for what better occasion to celebrate than the day our baby arrived.
But it was bittersweet, almost painfully so when on the eve of his birthday I crept into his room to check on him and saw so clearly the little boy he has become and the baby he is leaving behind.
Where had my tiny baby gone? [Copyright: Yahoo/Claire Sparks]
Obviously it’s inevitable - the steady march of time happens to us all, even the youngest are not immune. It’s more that it’s not a steady march; that first year of parenthood sucks you in to a whirling time warp where nights are long but days and weeks and months pass in a blurry blink of the eye. And then it spits you out at the one year mark and you’re left holding a toddler - a gorgeous, happy, chattering toddler, but still, you can’t help wondering, where has my sweet, helpless baby gone?
Instead, you’re left with Little Miss or Mister Independent. Who wants to feed himself. Commando climb the stairs. Take his first tentative steps. Says dada and mama and uh oh. Point at what he wants and ask, in his own babbled lingo, for it.
He’s old enough to eat honey. And Brie. And shark. Should he so wish. And being a greedy, grabby boy, he probably would, given half the chance.
He’s had his one year immunisations. And his 12-month development check; his first ‘exam’ of many. Does he pick up a Cheerio with his thumb and a finger? Does he help turn the pages in a book? Does he play with a soft toy by hugging it? And the open-ended ‘does anything about your child worry you’? He was weighed, measured, recorded.
It seems such an official, important benchmark: one. When counting in months becomes obsolete and you feel guilty when the health visitor asks you how many weeks he is and you’re stumped, unwilling to admit you lost count at 20-something.
You’d think I’d be used to it - the toddler has already had two birthdays. We’ve been here before. But this being my second child doesn’t make it any easier. Perhaps it’s been softened slightly by knowing in advance that I’d feel like this. It took me by surprise first time. I was secretly, partially dreading her first birthday; my return to work was casting its long shadow over the day and I knew the end of our happy little bubble was nigh.
Forget about the milestones, first birthdays are all about the cake [Copyright: Yahoo/Claire Sparks]
And perhaps this time it’s softened even more by the way that, like everything, the baby’s birthday unfolded with one eye on the toddler rather than both eyes solely on the baby. There’s no time to sit and wallow with a two year old and a one year old.
But there’s a little voice in my head that’s asking:
What if this is the end of the baby years? What if this is the last first birthday?
I’m not sure I’m ready for that. It seems like it was just last week that I was newly married and childless. The excitement of pregnancy and babies and starting a family languished ahead of me. Now I’m on the other side, my family is well and truly started and in fact might even be finished, and I don’t quite understand how I’ve got here so fast.
I’m not a new parent any more. I’m an old hand. The firsts are already becoming lasts. When the toddler is dragging out bedtime and I’m itching to get downstairs to open the wine, I need to remind myself that she won’t want me to tuck her in forever. The last time will come. There will be a last time I can make everything better with a cuddle or a kiss. A last time that I will pick them up in my arms and carry them. I probably won’t realise it’s the last time at the time, so I need to relish every time instead.
It’s difficult, sometimes, when I’m in the everyday mundane and thankless tasks of motherhood. To relish the specialness of this stage in my life. Which is why I welcome this melancholy birthday joy, this ache to slow time. First birthdays are a time for cake and presents, balloons and laughter. But, for me at least, they’re also a time for reflection.
