I’ve been going through pictures tonight. My camera card was full, and as I emptied it onto my computer, I began scrolling back through older pictures. Pictures of the past few weeks and months.
I saw one of John and Merritt just before John left and was struck by how little Merritt was then. Two months old… so tiny, especially when I compare that scrunchy-faced infant with the little guy who now eats real food and bear-crawls at lightning speed around the house.
I paused from clicking on pictures and looked ahead, my mind’s eye reaching forward years from now. I realized anew how short these years are with the little ones we’re given. How little time I actually have before they’re grown. In the craziness of our day-to-day here, it is so easy to lose sight of that and suddenly realize that a month has passed and I barely noticed.
They say that’s how it happens… you’re living life, you turn for an instant…
… and that squinty-eyed grin has become only a memory. That fourth tooth will have come in, fallen out, and an adult tooth will sit in it’s place.
It won’t be long before the high chairs will be packed away and they no longer get messy faces when they eat spaghetti.
The toddler who dunks his head in the water when he’s swimming and yet cries when we wash his hair won’t need floaties on his arms anymore or and will wash his own hair.
The baby who didn’t like the cool water of the pool on the first try will change his mind and will find kicking and splashing to provide endless fun.
I know they need to experience life… follow the path God has planned for them… grow up to be men who love and serve the God we’ve introduced them to.
I know that babying them and trying to keep them little will only hinder them. I don’t want to be a mother who holds them back from becoming who they are in Christ. I want to encourage them to grow and learn and be. I rejoice in those changes, day after day.
But I also don’t want to forget. There are so many little things that happen every day that are beyond precious. I don’t want those looks, actions, moments to become just a distant, faded memory.
Things like Troy’s love for giving Eskimo kisses…
Or Merritt’s sleepy eyed snuggle time after naps. Or piling into our bed every morning, giggling together while Troy talks about “ships sailing on the ceiling.”
The way Merritt opens his mouth WIDE to grin and how much he loves to “fly” through the air.
“Let’s be silly, Mommy! Okay, Mommy? Be silly!”
Don’t you sometimes (keeping that sometimes in mind, heh) wish there was a camera capturing every moment so we could look back at particular moments anytime we wished to? To keep the present from simply becoming the past and then fading into oblivion?
When I look at these pictures from a few years or even a few months ago, I have a hard time putting into perspective that the children I have right here, today are the same ones in those pictures. I hardly remember what they looked like when they were babies.
Tonight I decided I need to capture more of these moments in pictures.
It’s just speeding by way. too. fast.
Originally published at Heart and Home, July 2008.
I remember this post. When I first read it, I didn’t have my own little-little. Now I fully understand the concept of time speeding by way too fast.
I appreciate your thoughts and have felt that way so many times, although I’m not a mother. (Of course it’s not exclusive to mothers–but I think we always feel it more when we look at children.) I thought if you have time later, you might like to read something I wrote long ago. I wrote it in 1994 but shared with others in 1995, two years after my sister Rebecca died.
http://narniagirl.livejournal.com/10305.html#cutid1
love love your website, always amazes me you are such a young mum be blessed and you are in my prayers may God bless you.
Ashleigh, this was so beautifully said and it certainly ‘hit home’ with me tonight! I just took my oldest son (now 25) to the airport to catch his flight back to New York where he now lives and works as a designer/artist. He was home for an ‘all too short’ four day visit so we crammed all of our favorite things into that precious amount of time. I still have a hard time believing that my little boy, who used to draw pictures on every available piece of paper, napkins, backs of envelopes, and yes, even a wall or two, is now living independently and successfully so far away. Just this afternoon we were laughing over some of his earliest drawings – one of them a ‘cookbook’ he made for me when he was only 4 years old. I remember him sitting at the kitchen counter, his little legs barely touching the rungs of the stool as he scribbled so intently. And then, stapling it all together he pronounced his cookbook was complete so I could use it ‘every day’.
Yes, the days, months, and years seem to slip by quietly, and then you realize that one season is over but a new season has just begun.
It’s wonderful that you are cherishing each day with your little ones! Thank you for this wonderful post!
Among other wonderful features of this post, I love seeing how your boys adore each other! What a blessing siblings can be!