The last time

As parents, I think our lives are filled with firsts and lasts, with significant dates, with milestones. The first time the baby smiled, the first laugh, the first turn, first crawl, first step, first word etc.

But here's a milestone I never thought about until now when it was way too late.

When was the last time I carried my babies in my arms?

Looking at my children, now 10, 8 going on 9... when was the last time I carried them as a toddler, child, baby? When did I put them down for the last time and never realised it was the last time?

Did I think to myself, how heavy and how big they are getting? How old were they? What was the occasion? Was it something as innocuous as sitting them up on the counter for a drink of Ribena? Or carrying a warm, sleep-filled body from the car?

The first time I carried them of course, I will never forget. Straight after birth, as their warm, wet slippery bodies slide from mine - straight onto my belly and into my arms. How I marvelled at their features, their birth so euphoric. That one could never forget.

Yet the last time I would carry them as a baby should be no less important. And yet I can't remember it.

One fine day, I carried them for the last time, put them down on their feet, watched them go on their way and that was it.

Why was this milestone never consciously recorded in my mind?

Oh sure, I still have other babies, one still yet to be born. And for now at least I will consciously remember to note THIS milestone. But as time passes and in the ordinariness of the day to day, I am sure I will forget.

And one day I will sit down and think: when was the time when I really, finally held my babies as babies, for the last time?

And by then, they would have all grown up and my arms would be permanently empty, without that familiar ache.