Our bed is up against a window, and the soothing patter of rain woke me at 4:22 a.m. Within minutes, Alice was awake. Hungry, chilly, a squirming worm in Eric’s arms, anxious to burrow against my belly and nuzzle into my breast.

This happens often. Some unseen force nudges me out of open-mouthed slumber; a gentle hand on my shoulder, and I’m awake, listening, before there is a need to. It’s happened with both my girls, at all ages.

For a few seconds each time I open my eyes, when the mind is a blank canvas before life is instantly painted on, I forget. I feel like…me. Just Carly. My body, my interests, my own thoughts, with no one else to consider.

And then I blink, and this life seeps into my skin.

_____

Do you ever look around at the world you have created for yourself and wonder how it happened?

There are days when I feel like I’m out of my own body. Pregnancy, so visceral and consuming when you are living it, seems like eons ago — if it happened at all — yet here before my eyes are two beautiful and healthy little girls. That I helped create. That came out of me.

_____

“I just LOVE Mumma!”

Lucy, my sensitive, emotional soul, says this out of the blue frequently. My heart tightens, elongates, lodges in my throat each and every time. I can’t cry because it upsets her.

“Oh, Baby Goose. I love you, too.”

“Mumma, I’m not a baby.”

“I know you’re not, Lucy. But that is my name for you.”

“You tell me to, ‘Stop growin’, Lucy!’”

“I do. Stop it. Right now!”

“Mumma, I will go to school soon.”

“I know, Honey. Not for another whole year, but very soon.”

“I won’t need you when I go to school.”

I pause, wondering how to handle this — inane toddler conversations can spin wildly toward the significant in an instant.  Lucy is suddenly very interested in her school, which is down the street. We have explained that school is only for girls and boys to go to, and not Mummies and Daddies.

“Well, you might not need me when you’re at school, but I think I should still stick around.”

She throws her arms around my neck, and gives me a “seximo” kiss (rubbing noses together).

“Mumma,” she whispers into my ear. “I will always need you.”

_____

I don’t think you can regret your children.

Sure, you can yearn for the time before they catapulted into your life, changing every aspect of it forever. I wish, daily, for more hours in the day. I want to reach back into time and shake the old me who had endless stretches of emptiness in her lap. I want to sleep more, hating 6:15 a.m. when Lucy and Alice are simultaneously whining from their rooms and Eric and I poke each other under the warm sheets to try and force the other out.

But would I ever not have them, in order to secure these things? Never. Would I change anything about how they came to be? Never.

_____

In those late afternoon/early evening hours, when the TV is blaring, Spencer is barking at the wind, and Lucy is clinging to my knees, Alice is on my hip, and I’m stirring a pot with flushed cheeks, time stands still. So often I clock watch, counting the minutes until Eric comes home and I can disentangle myself.

But others, I close my eyes and inhale. I try to burn the chaos to memory. I want to remember it all, this feeling of being needed every single moment.

Soon enough, like the past life I occasionally miss, this time will be over.

Possibly related posts:

1. Surviving two
2. Unspoken
3. 1 year
4. Before I was a Mom
5. New life, new town: let the countdown begin