They Really Do Grow Up!

“They’ll be gone before you know it. The fingerprints on the wall appear higher and higher. Then suddenly they disappear.”
- Dorothy Evslin

I remember first reading this quote long ago when my twins were newborns and I was overwhelmed with five preschoolers. It seemed like the fingerprints and messes and constant demands on my attention from several sources simultaneously would be with me forever. But in two days my last babies, my twin boys, will turn four. I’m done with diapers and spit up and getting up in the night with babies. The strollers and high chairs and baby swings are given away. The fingerprints are moving higher on the walls (and some of my kids are actually learning to wash their hands so there’s not so much grime on everything!). My kids really are growing up!

 

But as this picture shows, the same outfits were pretty big on the little guys at first!

But I’m sad too. No more wonder of  feeling a baby move inside me for the first time. No more amazing excitement of childbirth. No more snuggling a sleeping baby and smelling that sweet newborn smell. No more seeing those first smiles. No more watching those first wobbly steps. No more hearing that first “mama.” No more watching a big brother or sister marvel over a new baby brother or sister. Oh, I miss my babies!

One era is gone and it was a great one – one I probably didn’t appreciate enough at the time. It can be hard to really enjoy the “now” when you’re getting slammed by so many hard things all the time. It can be easier to see the beauty in things that are past than in things that are present. As I look back, I realize the need to appreciate the beauty in the present more – to cherish the chances to snuggle my kids, to see them get so excited when I come help in their classrooms, to hear them beg for me to read them the next chapter in our book at bedtime, to have them clamor to tell me about something that happened at school that day. These are the beautiful things that are part of my normal days now – things that will be bright warm memories some day as those fingerprints move up the walls. I need to enjoy and appreciate the “now” a lot more so that I can crystallize these memories and keep them with me always while I find more joy in my daily life.

I hope that I’ll never feel the way Anna Quindlen felt in looking back: “ The biggest mistake I made [as a mother] is the one that most of us make while doing this. I did not live in the moment enough.” 
Kids really do grow up. Hard things really do get better – and then new hard things come along. Beauty really can be found every day. Enjoy the now! Capture it in pictures and writing but most importantly, capture it in your heart so that the beauty of being a mother to your children at every stage of their development (and yours) can stay with you always.

QUESTION:  How do you capture and cherish the moments of your motherhood?

CHALLENGE:  Slow down and enjoy your children during each stage of their lives.  The laundry can wait…

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