One of my best teachers, my son, Maxon.
My oldest just turned 3! How did that happen? The saying, “The days are long, but the years are short,” is 100% true.
In these short 3 years, but long 1,094 days I have learned so much from my son.
The very fist lesson he taught me: patience.
I have never been a very patient person. Once I had something in my mind, I wanted it done and I wanted it done right then and there. My son was born 6 days after his due date, so that was my first lesson in patience. Once he attached onto the boob, he never wanted to come off. There was my second lesson in patience. Sometimes he would feed for 45 minutes or more. Over the last 3 years, he has taught me to be patient with getting dressed, going to the bathroom, cleaning up toys, eating, really anything and everything. I am grateful that he has helped me learn how to enjoy the journey of life.
The second lesson he taught me: live in the present.
When he was a baby and my husband was working long hours, I would get “bored” and distract myself with my phone. He would be perfectly content until I pulled out my phone. The minute my phone came out, he would get fussy. I realized that it was not the phone that he didn’t like, it was the fact that I was mindlessly distracted. That was his first lesson to me in appreciating what I had in front of me instead of searching for something better to distract me on the internet. To this day, if I am doing something mindlessly (aka scrolling through Facebook) he will ask me to put my phone down. This has helped me learn to be fully present when I am working and fully present when I am playing. He has helped me appreciate what I have right now, in the present. It is not easy for me and I need to continue to work on it, but I have noticed that my connections are stronger because of it.
The third lesson he taught me: I need to take care of myself before I can take care of someone else.
The first 2 years of my son’s life were 2 blurry years of sleep deprivation. He would, very occasionally, allow both my husband and me more than 4 hours of sleep in a row. Sleep deprivation is no joke (another lesson he taught me: the TRUE value of sleep).
During those 2 years of survival mode, we had to make sure all of our other needs were met so that we could function. In order to do this, there were times I had to put my needs first so that I could help him meet his needs. One example is exercise.
At the beginning, I would say that I would exercise when he was napping. Then his nap would be cut short which meant that I did not get to exercise. I realized that in order for me to be the best mom, I had to have my exercise. Sometimes this would mean that I would miss out on that hour of being with him, or that he would be crying as I was walking out the door (he was always safe and in good hands with his dad). If I did not exercise I would get frustrated much more easily, have a more difficult time being in the present moment, be unable to sleep when I had time to sleep, and overall be a more difficult mom and partner to my husband. Once I learned how to put my own needs first, I was able to help him in more ways than I thought possible.
The list of lessons I have learned from him goes on and on, but these are definitely my top 3 for his third birthday! I look forward to everything else he will teach me in the coming long days, but short years.
