The passage of time never used to bother me. Babies grow up. People get older, people die. That's how life works, I never gave it much thought.
Now as a parent, I find myself wanting to stop time at certain moments in life. It's not that I never want to grow past this moment. It's more that I want to be able to come back to these moments and languish in them when things are tough. I want to remember them with such detail that I am re-living them. I find myself enjoying my family, my son, my husband and wishing that nothing would change. We would always get a along like this. We would know no hardship or sickness or tragedy.
I find the sentimentality that I could attach to mundane daily life can be crushing. Like, do I remember the last time my son needed help getting a toy? Do I remember the last time my husband and I had a conversation that didn't include parenthood? This
blog reminded me to at least slow down to watch. So much of life happens while we are all trying to get somewhere or get something else done. I'm trying to think if there was a milestone my son hit this morning when I was rushing to get ready for work and get everybody out the door.
He waved at me from his car seat when I walked back up to the front door to pick him up and put him in the car. He's still trying to master that wave, but it seems voluntary, not just his little hand being slung in the air. He pet the cat this morning from his perch in a bouncy seat while watching the first few minutes of Sesame Street. Life happens so quickly, even when you are watching.
