Celebrating the 'lasts'

Remember celebrating your firsts? Your first date, your first kiss, your first dance, your first car, your first exam success, your first job? Can you remember how you felt after any one (or maybe all of those things?) I know I would have felt giddy with excitement at all of the above, a wild mix of anticipation, adrenaline and youth.

Then we crack with the game of life and more firsts are celebrated and longed for and hoped for: first house, first baby, first promotion. On and on it goes until the firsts seem to run out and a plateau sets in. That's it, you've rolled the dice, moved along a few paces and et voilia, you're an adult.

But, I can't help but wonder about the things we might miss along the way. In looking for the firsts, are we missing the 'lasts'? Mamas, remember when you were willing your sweet little baby to walk and cruise around? Those first steps are a milestone that are much anticipated and watched for, but were you also watching for the last time you'd ever get to push your little darling around the shops in that pram (that took you forever to decide on, as it had to be shock-absorbant, easy to push AND super cute!) I've been having a clear out, and I came across the monochrome stroller that my littlest styled for a few years of her baby life. It struck me that I remember her first steps, even her first pair of shoes, but I do not recall the last time ever that I put her in that stroller and stopped at a coffee shop.

As I tucked my eldest into bed this evening, she was telling me excitedly about which part of Harry Potter she had recently read, and again that same thought hit me- when did she get too old for bedtime stories to be read to her? What was the last story I got to read aloud to her? I don't remember, I'd like to say it was the velveteen rabbit, but in truth I think that I thought that because I'd recently read it to littlest lady.

I think that maybe, just maybe, those lasts are perhaps a little too bittersweet to keep in long term memory. Maybe our sub conscious blocks them out, so that they don't upset the balance of our emotions. Or maybe, we are too busy willing the next stage to come to even notice the present stage passing by, sometimes all too quickly. Or perhaps it's even a small sense of entitlement, that we don't look for the lasts because we assume there'll be another.

There was once an old saying that 'you only appreciate what's gone when it has gone' and I think it is absolutely spot on. However, when change rears it's head and shocks you into flight or fight mode, that is when you become fully in the moment, realise what is before you, and cling onto it with both hands.

So, last night, I let bedtime slide a little later than routine denoted and the littles and I went to watch the lambs in the field behind the paddock. They're a definite short term thing, as a cute fluffy lamb to us is revenue for Tony the farmer! This evening was much the same, just before setting off to take the older two to Badgers, I caught one of them dancing without a care in the world on the driveway. She had earphones in, the sun was beaming down on her and she looked like the most beautiful and confident little girl in the World. When did I stop dancing like that? I took a sneaky iPhone pic for posterity and prayed she would never stop dancing as she continues to grow up (although if this were to happen at a slower pace, I would totally be okay with that!)

All this to say that change isn't always long awaited, expected or welcome, but at times it creeps up on us, and that's the pivotal point where we can start to hope for new things at the same time as savouring the old.