How important are they?
I had a milestone in my house recently; my little guy moved into his big bed. I was rather emotional looking at his little body in this big bed, snuggled up with his favourite elephant. With those emotions came a flash of all the milestones we’ve reached to get to this point and all the potential milestones ahead.
Milestones start long before a child’s conception. Women spend endless energy, both physically and mentally counting, watching, tracking, waiting. When pregnant, there is more waiting, marking each week with ‘what size fruit is your baby’ and from the moment your baby is born there is more watching, tracking, and instead of fruit, you’re researching percentiles and leaps. I understand the medical reasoning for some of these milestones but now, with a 6 and a 3 year old, milestones feel far more significant than what percentile their head size is in. It is hard not to get caught up in the ‘early’ milestones.. Have they doubled their birth weight, smiled, do they recognise your voice, have they rolled, moved to solids, have they got their first tooth, crawled, walked? The list is endless and while they are all important, they feel rather medical, not celebratory.
I’m not one for regrets but, I do wish I marked the milestones during my pregnancies. Maybe my memories will be enough and maybe, one day they will fade. Either way, it would be nice to have photos to mark the amazing job my body did as I entered motherhood. Considering I take about a million photos every day of my babies now, I wonder why I didn’t offer myself the same opportunity.
Now, milestones feel somewhat different. They remind me that one phase is ending yet what is starting is another adventure for everyone involved. As a parent, I fully appreciate why ‘adult’ milestones are given so much credence. Graduations, passing a driving test, first jobs, change of jobs, partners and families. It’s not about age, but the significance, the work and achievements.
While I don’t have a month by month trail of evidence of what my body did while pregnant, I love looking at how people celebrate their milestones. I’m living through others’ thanks to Pinterest. I have started to pin these ‘Memory Ideas’ and gosh people are creative. Do you celebrate milestones? Are you photographing your pregnant body month by month? Are you going to mark your child’s growth? I’d love to see your ideas, so follow Mother Dragon on Pinterest and share your photos and pins.
Not an intentional milestone, but a random photo I snaped of me, 37 weeks PREGNANT, doing laps in the garden (remember Covid?), watching my little lady play with her brother.
Jo @motherdragon
