Tweenlet

A friend of mine wished my eldest kidlet a very happy birthday for tomorrow. My baby will be turning ten. My friend pointed out that she will rapidly outgrow this kidlet stage. This caused me a moment of panic as I realized my kidlet is now a tweenlet.

That does not quite have the same ring to it, and it also makes me feel old. Harrumph.

Ten years ago today, I was getting ready to enter the hospital for a labor induction. Horse decided she was comfy in utero, and she was not going anywhere. I was eager to meet my baby. Heck, I did not even know if she would be a boy or a girl. I thought for sure that I was ready to embark on this whole parenthood journey. If only my baby would be born already!

My induction took almost twenty-four hours, and I can honestly say the hospital is lucky I did not sue them. There were so many mistakes that were made by different members of the hospital staff that when I wound up discovering I was pregnant with baby number two, I immediately sought out a new doctor that was affiliated with a different hospital. There was no way I wanted to go through that nightmare again. (I am happy to report my other two kidlets, who were both also induced, had a much better entrance into this world. The right doctor and hospital made all the difference. To this day, I state that if I were to keel over dead in front of that first hospital, I want my corpse shoved into a cab and driven to another hospital because I do not even want to enter that hideous hospital's morgue.)

Anyway, after a nightmarish twenty-plus hours, the sadistic nurse assigned to me finally consented to bring in the anesthesiologist. (My husband still teases me about how much I apparently enjoyed the medicine in that epidural. He mentions something about my singing about, "Happy drugs!" He's never had an extremely bloated organ squeezing the life out of him, so I think he cannot possibly understand just how much of a relief it was to finally not feel a blessed thing. Next time, he can push out the dang watermelon.) Just a few hours later, exactly ten years tomorrow, I was able to meet my baby girl.

My first conscious thought upon being left alone with my daughter for the first time was, "Now what the heck do I do? They cannot possibly trust me alone with this fragile creature!" Sadly, almost ten years later, I'm still wondering what the heck to do. I am not sure if she has figured out that I'm winging this motherhood gig. Whatever instruction manual might have come with her has long since been tossed out the window. Everything I thought I knew about kidlets was missing vital pieces of information.

I thought I would love my child. I never knew I could love her this much. It does not matter what she could ever say or do. I will not stop loving her. I guess I never truly understood unconditional love before having children. I also never realized how often I would need to reassure her of my love. Kidlets really do need constant reassurance.

I thought my child would get into mischief. I never thought this could occur 24/7. I did not think that my child taking scissors to her doll's hair and leaving a few long strands of red hair (I'm a brunette) in our bathroom would make me suspect my husband of infidelity because I could not fathom where the hair came from otherwise. I never thought that taking a nap with a two-year-old sitting docilely next to me could possibly lead to me waking up to said child being covered from head to toe, including clothing, with marker. I never thought I would have to call poison control because my child felt the urge to suck on the liquid soap dispenser or to crack open a glowing bracelet to lap at the liquid inside. I never thought I would have to make an emergency trip to the dentist because my child thought it would be a fun idea to try and jump over her sister when she cannot even handle walking down the hallway without bumping into something.

I thought my child might teach me a few things. I never realized she would teach me far more than I could ever teach to her, and that shows no sign of stopping as she gets older.

I thought I would enjoy being a mother. I never suspected that I would enjoy being a stay-at-home mother. I had always planned on going back to work when Horse was about a year-and-a-half old. I never thought I would enjoy parenthood enough to get pregnant again after that miserable first induction. I never realized that motherhood means having to see my own flaws, sarcastic commentary, and idiosyncrasies repeated by a mini-me, and always at the least appropriate times.

Ten years ago tonight, I was freaking out about almost being a mother. Today, I cannot imagine life any other way. I hope the next ten years with my tweenlet are just as special.