The Next Nielsen

I have been thinking a lot lately about ‘lasts’, as in “is this my last weekend  without a baby” or  “is this my last gator game” et cetera. This sounds negative, but for me really it’s not, it’s just more curiosity. Everyone tells me that my life is going to change, and that it will never be the same, but for the better.

It occurred to me the other day though that you never hear anyone talk about their lasts. You never hear about that last anything once they have kids, you only hear about the firsts. You’ll never hear someone say “I remember our last weekend before we became parents” but people will go to their graves with the image of their child’s first steps burned into their memory, and that’s really exciting.

So I thought I would take a moment and reflect on some of the firsts I have to look forward while in the midst of so many lasts:

• My first sight of her
• Her first breath
• Her first cry
• My first chance to kiss her
• Her first time grasping my finger
• The first time I look into her eyes
• Her first smile
• Her first steps
• Her first words
• The first time she tells Amme “No!”
• The first time she tells me she loves me
• The first time she understands what it means when I tell her I love her
• The first time she helps me dig a hole in the ground to plant a flower
• Her first day at school
• The first time I have to put the fear of god into some boy that likes her
• Her first (and last) ‘C’ on her report card
• The first time she can mow the lawn
• Her first kiss, and finding out about it 3 weeks later
• The first time she falls in love
• The first time I can mend her broken heart
• The first glance of her in her wedding gown
• My first chance to ask her ‘how about some grandchildren’
• The look in her eyes when the first realizes all of the amazing firsts in front of her

Sort of makes it easy to understand why the lasts fade from memory.