The last one

This title was inspired be a Huff post article that had me running though an entire box of kleenex. Every bone in my body knows that this is my last baby, and it is sooooo bitter sweet. Here is a picture of Raegan at almost Owen's age right not, and the scary thing is that I don't remember her like this. I simply can't remember any real and vivid memories of her being a baby. And it was only a few years ago. I hold Owen now, and I smell his hair, and kiss his head, and stroke his arm, and I think to myself that I will NEVER forget his smell or his cooo or his soft skin. But the truth is that I will eventually forget it all. And with each milestone that he hits, I am both excited and secretly mourning the last time. The closure of this stage of motherhood almost pushes the urge to have another baby, because this can't be the last time I use the baby swing, this can't be the last onesie I snap, this can't be the last time I nurse a baby......Yet, having another baby will not cure this, it will only delay it. I had saved all of Raegan's clothes, since she was born, because I always knew I would have a second baby, and if it was a girl we would use all of these clothes again. I dragged out her clothes to get rid of them, and my heart sank. I couldn't do it. I have a bag of Owen's clothes that don't fit him anymore, and they sit in his closet. Getting rid of them feels like getting rid memories. Eventually, these long days of early motherhood that are full of the greatest joys and greatest challenges of my life, will come to an end. Because even though they will be my babies forever, they will not forever be babies.
"The passage of time is the cruelest paradox of parenthood."