But, given how quickly children change, we don’t talk enough about how phases can be these brief moments in time where life was in a very particular period, and then the child changes yet again and it can suddenly look quite different. Sometimes I feel like I have whiplash from the emotions this can cause. Like I’m nostalgic for a phase of life that only occurred two months ago. Or, as is sometimes the case, I only realise how dramatically everything has changed when I’m looking at photos from three months ago and my breath catches.
That’s how I felt when I was searching for something in my camera roll and I found photos from March and April. Winter dragged her heels, Spring poked her head up momentarily and then Summer pushed her out the way, barging on through all bolshy and in-your-face. There was no moment for Spring even though she was definitely there, just for a second. There was definitely blossom on the trees and daffodils popping through and glorious magnolia trees. And there was definitely my baby’s first steps (at 10 months good god), his first birthday, my final few weeks of maternity leave.
I won’t be having any more children, so those final few weeks of mat leave were laced with emotion bubbling right under the surface. As I watched my baby quite literally find his feet, I felt this pang for those fleeting baby days drifting away. A newborn curled up on my chest, the blurry 3am feeds, the teeniest of hands and toes. As I watched him have his feet measured for his first shoes and we said goodbye to our baby classes, I felt those slow maternity leave days dissolving into hectic morning rushes, racing to get the kids out the door and to my desk on time.
Maternity leave and early baby days can feel a lot like spring, sometimes there are dark days and harsh winter winds and other days there is pure, brand-new sunshine shining on your face. I don’t necessarily want to go back but I wish I could bottle it up to remember exactly how it was, so it doesn’t fade with age, because it was a moment in time that I will never see again; the briefest of springs.
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