three months

I cannot believe time is flying like this. Hadassah Lee is thirteen weeks old, which feels like I officially have to start referring to her in increments of months. She looks chunkier than she is, I promise. I guess it helps that she’s the length of most newborns! This baby sleeps great and only cries occasionally. She eats well and smiles often. She’s still popular with the rest of her siblings. We haven’t hit any bumps in the road with my return to work, except for the part where I want to stay in bed all day and snuggle her to pieces.

She makes my heart soar. She makes me feel like I’m doing things right. She makes me want to go back in time and patch up the broken mother who bitterly stumbled through Ames’ early weeks. She makes me want to go back and pause to smell newborn Isaiah Jane and Honor Rose. And yet, I don’t even feel sad that I can’t. Is this what the last baby feels like?

There is so much grace in the journey, so much grace in how far I’ve come as a mother. And when I find myself raising my voice and clenching my teeth, there is grace in knowing that these days are fleeting. The beauty is in the bittersweet. There is nowhere to move but forward. My life is full of motherhood moments like this. Diapers slowly outgrown, forks and spoons mishandled no longer, words mispronounced less and less.

My little ones are sweet, but they sure are hard. I’ll bet they secretly wish to grow older, just to see if my patience will grow with them. And oh, how they will grow. Just like their big brothers, they will grow and grow and grow. One day, these kids will call me Mom instead of Momma. But I’ll always remember the way it sounded to hear the latter roll off of their sweet little lips.