My Two your Old Keeks is everything I thought being a parent would be and I feel guilty it took us two years to finally get here.
The past few months I have lived in a constant roller coaster of extreme happiness and extreme guilt. I finally feel that deep massive love and happiness that some mommas feel from the first day. Don’t get me wrong I would have done anything for my Keekster from day one and I’ve loved her to pieces from the day she came into my life and turned my world upside down. But those who’ve been through it with us know it wasn’t the smoothest start. We had the “dark days”, the exhausted blurred months, and then the plain I’m about to burn out times. Of course even in the hardest days we had good moments and memories I’ll cherish forever. We had days where I thought hey, I can do this, we’ve got this! Just to wake up the next morning and feel like my sweet all of the sudden easier kid had been possessed by the devil himself. And that’s just it.. that’s parenthood right? It’s a constant rollercoaster of ups and downs. It’s finding happiness and strength in the sweetest moments to get you through the rougher ones. Sometimes you need to parent in survival mode, other days you can be as perfect as them cheesy Instagram unicorn families. It’s easy to say this now as I write in retrospect, but in those moments it wasn’t always easy.
At some point Keeks turned 18mo and the sun came out. She started speaking in sentences, expressing her wants and no wants, she began spending longer periods of time playing with one thing. She was still her active self, needing a healthy those of running and climbing, but she also knew when to stop. You know what also happened? She started sleeping through the night consistently. I mean yea there were off nights that made me freak out and fear that we were going straight back to the dark days, but for the most part I could trust that she would be up sometime between 6:00-6:45. It’s shard to describe without getting detailed but overall it just fell like things started falling into place and as I became less worried with keeping us sane and alive, I started to fully enjoy her persona.
My Keeks is funny. I mean I knew this from the start, but she has now realized that she’s funny and she has figured out her smile and laugh can make others happy. So she now willingly decides when to be funny and how to rile us up. My Keeks is smart and curious. Again, we knew this from day one, but its different watching a 6mo old destroy a store because she wants to explore everything vs. having a full on conversation with my 2 year old about how we cook carrots. I get to teach her and she loves to learn. She also knows how to play and be sweet – consciously. She often invites me to do things together and that to me is the sweetest thing. The best thing about 2 year old Keeks is she is cuddly and loving, which wasn’t the case for infant Keeks. Infant Keeks wanted to run around and assert her independence. While 2 year old Keeks wants to do everything “myself” but will do it while sitting on my lap or come to celebrate with hugs, kisses, and tickles. I mean she says stuff like I love you mommy, I missed you mommy, I’m so proud of you mommy. That is priceless.
Anyway, my point is, we’re in a happy place. Some days are easier than others, but I now have enough happy moments to call on to get through the tougher days. As I watch Keeks play on her own for what has now been about 30min, 30 glorious minutes, I feel sad that I wasn’t one of the lucky mommas out there who feel this deep love, happiness, and sense of purpose from day one. I realize I can’t go back in time and make myself adapt quicker or change the way I handled things but I do think maybe in sharing how long it took us to get here I might save some other mommas the isolation and guilt that comes with feeling like the only parent who is not blissfully happy and in love with their kid 24/7. I guess all I can say is everyone gets to the happy place at different times and all we can do is be grateful we’ve gotten there and it didn’t take one second longer because once you get there, it’s the best feeling ever.