A lot happens in a little bit ‘o time.

It’s become common practice around here for me to be laying in bed wishing I wrote down all the cute things you two did during the day, all the mom thoughts that come to mind too, telling myself I’ll take more photos tomorrow and willing myself to commit our special moments to memory in place of any of that. So much has come to mind from watching you and your sister evolve, and so very much has changed in both of your developmental timelines.

This summer, for instance, one which was spent either at home or close to home, brought leagues of evolution. You’re now sitting up (having figured that out just days before your 7 month birthday) and I can sense you shifting into a new phase of baby-dom where you’re starting to figure out how to use your body - a very obvious departure from the first phase of your life so far. You’re at the perfect junction between complete codependence and independence (my favourite developmental stage, by the way), which makes me both excited and sad. The dichotomies of parenthood are never ending.

I’ll never not be amazed by the shifts that happen during a child’s development. To the naked eye, they happen overnight. To the mother’s eye, she knows there’s been a lot of work to get you to a place where your body can magically do new things and sometimes it comes as a massive surprise, but she can always look back and find the signs that were leading up to it. I’ve been having a lot of fun watching you, but I’ll be the first to admit that these major shifts always surprise me a little, even if I knew they were coming all along.

I’m developing too, learning a lot and surprising myself along the way. Once again, there’s recently been a lot floating around in my head - the flow is effervescent - and I’ve hypothesized many things this week, two of which I’ll share with you now. One is that I’m most likely to desire more children at this stage of your development because of the first spark of independence I see in you, knowing you could be my last wee babe. The other is that I’m raising two young girls while no longer in the prime of my life, but at what could be considered the halfway mark. Two contradictory realizations, I’d say, but very telling and interesting nonetheless.

I think about having another one all the time, every day in fact. Many factors play into this - the state of my relationship with your father and our co-parenting lifestyle, my mental and physical health, and my age being at the forefront, but also (and very strongly) whether there’s another one of you waiting in the wings, meant for us. Right now it’s a battle between allowing what’s meant to happen happen, and not putting too much on my plate knowing how much I can handle at once. My heart is in limbo and I need to give it space to settle naturally into one heart space or another, all the while fully enjoying you not only at this stage, but at all the other stages to come.