365 days, reset to zero

Today marks the very last day of my little man’s first year with us.

This time last year, my waters started leaking. Husband and I looked into each other’s eyes, and calmly tied up all loose ends before heading to the hospital. Without saying a word to each other, we knew that this was an intimate experience, something that we wanted to share between ourselves only. We switched off our phones, kept social media out of it, and quietly faced what was coming.

At 4am, my son was born.
And my world changed in that moment.

365 days. A year.

A year has flown past, just like that.
It’s been such a journey, an adventure, the steepest learning curve I have ever encountered.

But the joy! Oh, such pure intense joy and love.
I thought I knew what love was, all along. I thought I had been through it all.
I thought wrong.

A famous quote from author Elizabeth Stone goes like this: “Making the decision to have a child is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.” And it is true.

The love we have for the little man is unparalleled. It’s deep, and intense, and so raw. I look at him everyday and think to myself, “We made this?!” Because it’s so unreal that he is here, especially given all that we have gone through. And it’s such an amazement to see ourselves mirrored in him, and to discern the aspects of him that is him and him alone.

I’m not an over-protective mama and yet I can say that my protective instincts are fierce and selfless when it comes to him. We try not to practise helicopter parenting but I will not hesitate to stand up for him and his well-being if the need arises. Lord knows how much friction this has caused but I stand firmly by my parenting values and philosophy.

Parenting is such an evolutionary process, we are constantly learning everyday. Not just about the little man, but about ourselves too. It can be a little scary sometimes, because we honestly don’t know what we are doing. I mean, this is a first time for us and Aidan’s personality is as new to us as we are to him.

And so, we celebrate.

We celebrate his existence.
We celebrate his milestones.
We celebrate our achievements.
We celebrate the joy and laughter that he has brought us.

And more importantly, we celebrate our family, which feels even more complete than ever.