Baby is Growing Up, Mama is Having Growing Pains

By Jennifer Savage, 6-26-07

Today I was pumping milk, one of my least favorite acts of motherhood, when I saw Eliza crawling for a walk-behind toy. She’d not shown much interest in it until now. She pulled herself up and began to bang on its rail with one hand while holding on with the other. Both of my hands were occupied trying to get every last possible bit of milk before I reached for her, afraid she would fall, hit her chin, take a face plant onto the hard wood floor.

But before I could reach her she took a step forward. And then another. She was pushing the toy across the room, walking behind it, her fat little legs high-stepping across the rug. I set the breast pump down on the bathroom floor, neglecting to turn it off, and walked bare breasted behind her. I had to stop myself from picking her up, I had to let her walk away from me, alone. When she stopped she turned around to look at me with a giant proud, grin. She sat on the floor with a thud and crawled over to me chattering.

I thought my heart was going to break.

I let out a “Yay, that’s awesome baby!” But inside I felt like crying.

She’s not a tiny baby anymore.

I’ve started to notice this in other ways. She’s longer. She has two teeth. She prefers finger food to baby food. She mimics me in new and knowing ways. She seems to have an ever-developing sense of humor.

I’ve watched these developments with equal parts pride and expectation. When she started to crawl I was relieved because she seemed so frustrated trying to make it happen that it was, well, annoying. No one has been more happy than I to see both teeth emerge and I love that she thinks my biting her pacifier out of her mouth is just down right hilarious. But something about seeing her walk across the floor on two chubby feet, even with the aid of a toy, did something to me I wasn’t expecting. In those few steps I saw her first day of preschool, boy-girl parties, high school graduation. I saw adventure, love, heartbreak, hers and my own. I saw an independent woman waving goodbye from the airport off to India to live with some boy (or girl) that I barley know.

Now how I saw India and airports in Eliza’s stumbles I’m not sure but I had to look away at the pile of dishes that I left unwashed last night, I had to ground myself there. I had to take a deep breath.

So begins the inevitable. Eliza is moving across the living room upright and I’m having growing pains. Wasn’t it just yesterday that I pushed her out of me on a warm summer night? Wasn’t it yesterday that we brought her home and lay, the three of us, for days on end in our bed, time stopping for us? Wasn’t it yesterday that she screamed her way through the night with colic?

No. It wasn’t yesterday. It was nearly a year ago. I have to remind myself.

When I was 19 I told my parents I was moving to Montana. I told them I was driving across the country, in winter, with my boyfriend to go to school here for a semester. My dad just looked at me like I was crazy. I did it and he was happy when I came home. When I was 23 I told them I was moving to Oregon, this time for who knew how long, to go to graduate school. My dad asked me why I didn’t want to go to school closer to home.

“What’s wrong with the University of North Carolina? Do you have something against Chapel Hill?” he said. I rattled off something about the University of Oregon and the fantastic program and the West and God knows what else. He stopped me.

“I don’t care how good the program is,” he said. “I just don’t want you to go so far away.”

I bit back the tears and moved to Oregon anyway. It’s been eight years this August since I left North Carolina. My dad is still waiting patiently for me to move back there.  I’ve only made it as far East as Montana.

Watching Eliza today I think I felt a tiny sliver of what my dad must have felt that day on his back deck when I told him I was moving 3,000 miles away from him and that I didn’t know when or if I would ever move back. I realized, like he must have then, that she’s starting to move through her world without me. Today I wondered how it could be possible.  So soon? I wonder if my dad looked at me when I was 23 and thought the same thing.

Jennifer Savage writes about being a Western mom on her own blog here on NewWest.Net. Read more from “Savagemama” at www.newwest.net/savagemama.