Time flies when you are having fun

In 1998, cutting the hospital bracelet off our new baby- she is ours to keep!

 When I was expecting my first child I found out right away, at about 4 weeks along.  The nine months Tim and I spent waiting for our baby seemed to last forever.  The days dragged along, the weeks sloooooowly passed as we anxiously awaited the day would we become parents.  After nine months that felt more like nine years, my due date finally arrived but the baby was not as anxious as her parents, and though the date on the calendar had finally come the baby decided not to.  For six more very long days, the longest in my life, we waited and waited doubting that we would ever really get to meet our new baby and find out if we would have a girl or a boy.  But, almost a week past my due date…at long last… my water broke and we headed to the hospital feeling that finally the time had come to meet and hold our little bundle of joy.  “Not so fast,” baby seemed to say.  For, although labor started early, before the sun was up, our beautiful baby girl did not make her appearance until just a few minutes before midnight.  After nine months, six days, and about 19 hours, the waiting was finally over and Tim and I entered the wonderful, crazy world of parenting. 

    Funny how the waiting was excruciatingly long but the time since has flown by at an alarming rate.  Tomorrow it will have been exactly 12 years since we welcomed our first child and I am not sure how it is possible that that tiny precious baby has turned into a pre-teen practically over night.   The time has gone so quickly, Tim loves to say that he is not old enough to have a child who is 12.  Obviously that is not true but, at times, we certainly both feel too young to have a 12 year old.   He and I were both in our early 20’s when we had our first child.  In many ways, we were not so grown-up ourselves.  We had a baby because it sounded like fun.  We has no idea how many moments would be anything but fun.  We had no idea how much it would require of us and how hard it would be to always be responsible for our daughter’s care, safety, discipline, education, etc…  While we were waiting all those months back in 1998, we felt so ready to start our roles as mommy and daddy.  We felt totally ready to welcome and raise a child.  Looking back, I am not sure we were at all prepared for the reality of parenthood.  I am not sure how anyone can be.  There is just no way to prepare or to anticipate what it will be like to actually leave the hospital and take that baby home. 

    Somehow, Tim and I have figured it out.   I guess we have, over the years, risen to the challenge of really being parents.  We still don’t always know what to expect, the teenage years are right around the corner and promise to be a whole new world of uncharted territory.  But, with God’s grace and guidance, we have grown into our role as parents.  And, our daughter has grown into a amazing young lady- beautiful, smart, creative, and kind.  I am so proud and so humbled at the same time, that God has allowed me to be her mother.  So tomorrow we will celebrate our daughter’s birthday and the joy and happiness she has brought us each and every day of the last 12 years.