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 years ago when our 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 now my last babies, my twin boys, are 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!

Here’s a picture of Oliver and Silas today. Wow do their coming-home-from-the-hospital outfits look small now!

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

I’m so happy to be done with the baby paraphernalia all over the house. I’m so grateful to be able to run out the door without having to grab diapers and wipes and bottles – I’ve been diaper bag free for a couple years now! I love being able to talk to and reason with all my kids. I love seeing them read and bike and dance and do so many fun and exciting things. It’s so great to be able to take them all on a bike ride or bowling or to a museum or on a road trip and have it actually be a fun experience for everyone including the parents.

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. I need to cherish the chances to snuggle my kids, to see their excitement when I come help in their classrooms, to hear them beg for me to read them the next chapter in our book at bedtime, or 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 and realize the beauty of this stage with my children, stopping to drink in the love and the sweetness that’s always there, if I look for it.

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, enjoy it and 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.

*** For more specific ideas from Saren on appreciating the “now” with our children, check out this post: Five Tips for Loving Every Age and Stage (includes a video).

QUESTION: What do you do to enjoy the current stages and ages of your children?

CHALLENGE: Snuggle those kids, really listen to what they want to say to you, cherish the moments. The laundry and that text you need to send can wait..

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About Saren Eyre Loosli

Saren adores her five energetic, adventurous, precocious children but doesn't totally adore the mess and busyness and bickering that that comes with them! She grew up all over the world, got her Bachelor's degree at Wellesley College and did her Masters in Education at Harvard University (these days, the diplomas on her wall mostly serve as visual aids when she's trying to convince her all-too-smart teenagers that she DOES know a thing or two!). She went on to design and implement enrichment programs for kids and training programs for teachers. But it was only after she finally found her Mr. Right, Jared, and had five children in five years, that her education and work experience began in earnest!

When she's not trying to answer five - or six - different needs and questions at once, she works on this website (she's Co-Director and Co-Founder of Power of Moms).

She currently lives in Ogden, Utah and loves reading, hiking, and biking with her family (or by herself when possible!). She often struggles with balance but finds joy in being involved in many things that are meaningful to her.