A Phase

As I sit here at my computer listening to Casey babble about in his bed when he should be napping, a sad realization has struck me:

Soon, in the not so distant future, Casey will give up his morning nap.  And my luxurious mornings, complete with coffee and bed and the Today show and blogging, will be a distant memory. 

But that's not all.  Also, in the not so distant future, Braden will be giving up his one and only afternoon nap.  And then I will have no break in the day.  AT ALL. 

This scares the crap out of me. 

Right now, even with these two breaks in my day, I consider my day pretty damn hard - much harder than my days in biglaw.  I am exhausted.  When the boys are up, and I'm not preparing meals or cleaning up from meals or dealing with various toddler demands, I'm on a constant quest to entertain them and find activities.  Some days are easier than others, but all days, an immense amount of energy is exerted, and I yearn for my boys' naptimes.  Yearn for them!  

I know that I'll get used to this new phase, just as I got used the the newborn phase, baby phase, and toddler phase that followed.  Just as I got used to school schedules and parks and playdates and solid foods.  But with each new phase comes an uncertainty that is overwhelming.  What will my kids be like?  What will my schedule be like?  What will life be like?


I'm not all that comfortable with this uncertainty.  With my previous legal career, I could anticipate how the years would progress.  Sure, there would be different cases and deals and busy times and down times, but at the end of the day, at X year I would make X salary.  At X year, I would be up for partner.  And then, assuming at X year I made partner, I would spend the next X years doing pretty much the same thing until I retired and died at age X.   (Maybe a bit of an oversimplification, but you get the drift).

With motherhood, the phases are just so DIFFERENT, so they are hard to envision.  I know that there will come a day when my kids are self sufficient and independent and I won't need them to be napping in order to have some personal downtime.  But I can't imagine it.  I can't internalize that things will change that much.

It's like my favorite line from my favorite movie, "About a Boy," where Hugh Grant is enduring a painful and awkward rendition of "Killing Me Softly" and he states in an inner monologue:  "I knew of course that the song wouldn't last forever . . . .that I'd soon be home tucked in bed.  I knew it.  But I couldn't feel it." 

I like this phase I'm in right now.  Not just for the naps, but for the balance of it all.  It just meshes.  Casey is mobile, but not too mobile, and is such an easy, happy baby.  Braden is finally loving his brother and is increasingly verbal and is cracking all of us up.  They sleep well.  They eat well.  They hug me and kiss me and cuddle me and aren't embarrassed about it.  I don't want things to change.

I don't want them to grow up. 

I know they will, and a new phase will come - one that I will love more than any one previous.  I know it.  I just can't feel it.