I’ve been a mom for over nine years now. Of all the jobs I’ve ever had, being a mother is the hardest, the most demanding – and the most rewarding. I can’t imagine my life now without these little people in it.
As the days and months – and years – go by, it’s becoming all too clear how fast the time goes.
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| "Did you organize that I could run so fast?" |
When I was little, I used to hear my parents talk about “how fast time flies.” I never agreed with them. Time CRAWLED by back then… my birthday always seemed like it would never come, and Christmas was even worse!
But now? Wow. Now I get it.
I took Sadie shopping for clothes the other day in the Juniors’ section – she can’t find anything that fits her long legs in the Girls’ section anymore.
Josie went to a horse riding class all by herself and she was perfectly fine without me. She made two new “best friends,” and she even got their phone numbers.
Adelaide turned five this week – my little baby girl is FIVE. She’s already lost two teeth and she’s starting to learn to read.
Jedidiah, my baby boy, now talks in complete sentences. As we went past the bakery in the grocery store yesterday he informed me: “I want some cake. In my mouf!”
I used to think that their littleness – their “kid-ness” – would go on forever. But now I see that it won’t. They really are only little for a little while.
They don’t understand that most days I just want to catch them and somehow freeze them in one of their amazing moments:
Jed, red-faced and exuberant, swinging his arms and jumping with both feet (clad in his favorite snowboots) from the lawn chair into the grass, yelling, “Wook, Mom! I DOOoooo it!”
Adelaide, giggling madly with squinched-up eyes, running through the yard wearing a puppy dog t-shirt, a long skirt and bare feet, tossing a “Did you organize I could run so fast?” over her shoulder as she passes by in a blur. (She substitutes “organize" for "realize.")
Josie (wearing her pirate eye patch), lovingly concentrating on her latest bug capture, building it a habitat and letting it crawl all over her arms while she digs her toes into the dirt and sings (loudly) to the wind: “Duke Duke Duke Duke of Earl, Duke Duke….”
Sadie, flitting from her garden to the flowerbeds with a watering can, a butterfly net, a paintbrush, and a bucket of rocks, saying, “Mom! You have GOT to come see this! I cracked that boulder open with my rock-hammer! Oh, and how do you spell chrysalis?”
And now… now that chances are very slim that I’ll ever have another baby, it makes me sad to know that they are growing up a little more every day. And the days are almost a blur.
I don’t really know who I am anymore, aside from them. They have, to an extent, consumed me.
But they are still my babies. I love the excitement they bring to my life – the chaos, the newness, the imagination. I love watching them overcome every obstacle. I love how they are constantly reinventing themselves, conquering their fears and trying scary, intimidating things.
It scares me a little that they are growing up – that every step they take from now on will be a step further away from me. Fortunately, since this is also the busiest I’ve ever been, I really don't have much time to dwell on it.
Sometimes when I’m tucking them in at night, I sing them this little song I made up (which they think is sappy but they love that it makes me cry): “Please stay little just a little while longer… don’t grow up so fast
Please stay little just a little while longer, I want this moment to last.”
Yes, time is flying, and some moments are harder than others, but I wouldn’t trade this time for anything.
Not one minute of it.
--from my 5/29/13 post for www.mentorpatch.com
