Richmond Parents Monthly | Family Magazine -The Frumpy Zone

the frumpy zone by colleen r. lee

Growing Pains There Goes the Babyhood

I am about to enter a plane in the Frumpy Zone that I haven’t been to in 10 years—a dimension that is BABY FREE!
My youngest child, Julianna Rose, is officially 3½ years old, and I am torn. A part of me is ecstatic to be approaching the end of the Baby Years. But I wonder where the time has gone. It seems like just yesterday that I was nursing her and changing diapers. Now she’s stealing my lipstick and saying, “No, I’LL do it ’cause I a BIG GIRL now.”
So in honor of Julianna becoming a BIG GIRL, I’d like to share some of her recent escapades with you.
(If I don’t do it here, then I’m afraid her whole babyhood will go by unchronicled. My oldest has four scrapbooks, three journals and one baby book, all documenting her first four years of life. My son has one journal/scrapbook combo documenting his first two years of life. When Julianna arrived, things spiraled out of control. I do believe I scribbled a few memories down on a napkin at the hospital after she was born.)
Julianna is the most daring of all three of my children. She only learns through experience (mostly painful). In the past six months, my daredevil daughter has dislocated her elbow, wedged a popcorn kernel in her ear, swallowed a marble and smuggled a jumbo tube of Nerds out of Target in her pants. (This has resulted in two ER visits, one week of “poop stirring” and a stern “talking to” with the Target Rent-A-Cop.)
Even her speech has become surprisingly adult. Just last week when she dropped a toy, I thought I heard her mumble, “Oh, sh--!”
I looked at her in shock and said, “What did you just say?” To which my articulate daughter replied, “I said ‘Oops,’ Mama, not ‘Oh, sh--.’”
Julianna has been waking up at night crying from leg cramps. I realize that she is not the only one experiencing growing pains. As I rub her legs and rock her back to sleep, I get that pang, the one that’s directly attached to my ovaries; the one that reacts every time I see a pink, powdered bundle of joy; the one that makes me want to start trying for Baby Number Four.
Then my brain severs the connection with a drop kick of memories— sleepless nights...sore nipples...leaky diapers.…
Phew, that was close. Maybe I’ll just start her scrapbook with all the free time I’ll have since the house will soon be Baby Free!

Richmond-area writer and teacher Colleen R. Lee lives with her husband and three kids in the Frumpy Zone. Visit her at www.thefrumpyzone.blogspot.com

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