Once Around the Sun

Today my little boy is one year and one day old. He’s one. I’m aware of this milestone in a very different way than with Eliana who is now 5. The perspective I have with Avi is that I know after one it all starts to go so quickly. That first year is full of firsts. His first winter, spring and summer. His first boat ride, his first holidays, his first parade, etc. All this summer I thought about how last summer I was doing everything while pregnant, waddling to the beach, waddling to the fairs, eating a lot of ice cream. Full disclosure; I do that every summer.

The days are getting shorter and darker now. The sun at three in the afternoon feels like it’s just clinging to the sky, sinking below the trees.  Last year at this time I was afraid that the darkness I experienced after my first pregnancy would return with this one. And it hasn’t, it just hasn’t.

This year has brought tests of my parenting and myself as an adult in ways I could have never imagined. I’ve found strength in myself that I didn’t know was there. I’ve felt more love and also more loneliness than I’ve ever known before. All in just one trip around the sun.