The passage of Time

                                                  Time. 

There is a lot to be said about the passage of time. Hootie and the Blowfish (the great orators of our generation) once said "Time is wasted, time is walking  you ain't no friend of mine... I think I'm going out of my mind just thinking about time."

Time is so many things to so many people. I think that time is most evident in a mother's life.The days are long but the years are short. That's what they say about motherhood. I would have to agree. Time wasted worries you, time ahead fills you with anxiety, time behind you fills you with sadness. I  think of this time in my life with my children and I feel like it is slowly slipping through my fingers. This time is precious, and valuable and quickly moving and ever changing.

It is this time, this preciousness that propels me to take snapshots of my children so that I can look back and remember.

I can remember that moment when your two front teeth were missing. It was just 3 weeks of time before that front one grew in. It was your seventh birthday with that cake that took an army of hands to put together. And it was this cake that made you smile that gloriously magnificent tooth gapped smile that I will remember forever, but that only lasted for 3 short weeks.

I can remember that moment when I first brought you to this playground and it didn't look too big for you. It was just your size. And that knowing smile told me that you were ready for a phase of life that I wasn't ready for.

But that smile also told me that while you were a big boy now, playing with the other big boys, you weren't too big to stop holding my hand or giving me a big, sloppy, wet kiss as I said goodbye to you. You were telling me that it was going to be okay, even though you weren't exactly sure that it was. That was this moment.

And then there was this innocent split second when you were sitting on your Nana's lap and looking up into my eyes with such love; such tenderness. And it took my breath away that someone could look at me that way, that someone could love me in that way. And it was in that moment that I thought to myself "There has never been a more beautiful little girl in the history of forever." And you held my hand and wiggled into my lap and you put your face against mine. For that split second, for that moment we were connected. And I was your everything.



While I'm sad at the time that is already gone and am excited about the time that I won't have to potty train, or pick up the lego that seems to congregate down the edges of my hallway, I must for now live in the present in this fast moving and changing current of happenings that is my children's childhood. How I want it to stand still. I would gladly fill up sippy cups forever if I could just hold onto this moment.

This wonderful, beautiful moment of absolute chaotic, giggling mess.