It’s 11pm. A newborn in the neighbourhood is crying. He/she has cried a few times already.

I sat in my quiet living room having a cup noodle (my 2nd one since a long time before I gave birth). Little Foot had slept at 9pm sharp today, after a tiring afternoon out at Punggol Waterways.

As I sat and listened to the distant crying, I’m reminded of Little Foot’s colic days… even then, as Daddy Long reminded me, she had never cried for too long. We always had some tricks that magically worked to soothe her.

Today, Little Foot is 50 weeks old… those colicky days felt like a long long time ago. With this thought, I suddenly felt just a little old, a little wistful, perhaps a little slow.

2 weeks to her 1st birthday.

I haven’t quite gotten my head wrapped around the fact that my precious baby Little Foot will no longer be a baby anymore. (Now we know why some people enter adulthood with their parents calling them Ah Bee!)

While she hasn’t learned to sleep through the night, we have established some sort of routine (a baby led one) that gets her to bed most days at a decent hour. Nevermind that she would wake several times at night.

I don’t envy the parents who are dealing with the crying newborn.  It used to be all these “what do you need??!”,  “What can I do to make you feel better??!” going through my head, whenever the baby keeps bawling and I start ticking off the mental checklist in your head and arrive at “I don’t know what the fishcakes is wrong with her!”.

To the newborn’s parents, trust me, it will get better. YOU will get better at it. And trust me, 10 months down the road, you will be like me, sitting in the living room reminiscing about your baby’s newborn days when you hear other babies cry… days that were so fleeting and you somehow miss. As those days were so trying, they became such precious memories. Because they symbolised the kind of mother I was. Those days laid the good foundation for me. They gave me courage to say “Come what may, I am a mother, I will wing it” whenever things gets tough.

I miss my newborn Little Foot, I miss the tiny baby I used to hold with 1 arm. At the same time, I love this adventurous, cheeky Little Foot that she has grown to become,  and I look forward to more exciting and heartwarming times with her.

Facebook prompted me that on this day a year ago, our diapers orders had arrived. Those newborn size diapers are long gone. What left was the memories of a baby whose butt was so small, and who looked overwhelmed in those diapers while her umbilical cord peeped through.

This is Parenthood. Chasing the future, missing the past, and more importantly, embracing the present.

It’s a lovely journey isn’t it?