Samantha Miriam Mossoff is two years old. She's definitely not a baby anymore, and overall, I'm pretty happy about that. So why do I tear up when I think about it?
There is nothing I can think of that defines her becoming a two-year-old. It's just a lot of small changes. She says more words every day. She is combining words into simple sentences. She can jump. She knows the color yellow. Her likes and dislikes are becoming more pronounced.
Something that snuck up on me was her ability to finally go to sleep without crying. Until recently, every single time she went to sleep Sam cried for at least five minutes and at most an hour. It averaged about twenty minutes. From what I hear from other parents, this is not normal. But it was normal to us. Sam slept through the night when she was ten weeks old and has always taken regular naps. But every time, there was the crying. I got somewhat used to it. I could watch TV or maybe even read a magazine most of the time. But there were times that she sounded more upset than usual, or it went on longer than usual. This could make me writhe in agony while I willed myself not to go to her. You see, if we went to her it would just reset the clock and we'd have to go through it all again. Crying was Sam's way of soothing herself to sleep. Besides the pain of hearing it every night, it also added to my uncertainty about whether she was hurt or in real distress. There were times when I would hear something different in her cry and I'd run up to her room to find something wrong: her leg sticking through the bars of the crib, a poopy diaper, or something else that needed fixing. So every night, I'd have to listen carefully to her cry, on red alert for any change in tone. Talk about the girl who cried wolf. And talk about stress.
About six months ago, Sam stopped crying before her nap. And a few months ago, the time she cried at night started decreasing. Adam and I noted at one point that she seemed to be crying only about five minutes instead of twenty. But then it went on like that for a while. And then, it was gone. I think it took us two or three weeks to recognize it. No crying at all. Silence. Immediate, beautiful silence. The most difficult thing about our baby was gone and it had happened so gradually that we hardly noticed.
And this is what makes the emotion well up in me when I think about her getting older. It's the fear that I won't be paying close enough attention as she grows up. The idea that I might not notice something, or that it will be gone before I really understand it. Constant change is here to stay, and even though I love the excitement and anticipation this creates, there is some ambivalence in me. I suppose there's nothing to do but enjoy the ride.
To Be Continued...(with pictures)
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