Since the day Benji was born I’ve been sad because he’s growing up too quickly. Okay, I am obviously exaggerating. I didn’t start getting really sad until he was about 3 months old when I had to put away his tiny little newborn sleepers, hardly able to believe that my big three-month-old once fit into them. I realized then that even though 6 p.m grocery store line-ups and morning meetings that are still going strong past noon seem to take forever, they actually don’t. Nothing does. Time goes more quickly the older you get (don’t believe me? Think about how long a two-hour car trip used to take when you were six) and I know that soon-- too soon-- I will be one of those weirdos who stops people with babies on the street to tell them to enjoy every second because of how quickly they grow up. I know that I will blink and my kids will be grown-up people making excuses not to have to see me (please God don’t let this happen--please let my children live next door because they can’t live without me)(or at the very least let them have me on speed dial).
The thing is that it’s hard not to mentally rush things-- you look forward to your child sleeping through the night and learning to walk and run and speak and read and he does all that stuff and it’s the best, cutest stuff ever and then he is asking to learn to drive and before you know it he doesn’t want to cuddle with you or kiss in public and then he tells you that he is bringing someone else to the prom. Sad stuff.
At least once a day I remind myself to enjoy a moment. It can be a moment when 2-year-old Benji old and 4-month-old Aviva are holding hands while Aviva nurses or when Benji is singing the ABCs at the top of his lungs while simultaneously clapping and marching though the kitchen or when sweet Aviva is sleeping on me, her warm little body splayed out on my chest as she periodically sighs contentedly. Even in those moments I know that too soon they will be sepia memories (was it Benji or Aviva who used to march through the kitchen while singing ABCs? How did Aviva get the cat to hold her hand while she was nursing? ) but I don’t know how to make them last. I don’t know how to make time go more slowly (other than spending all of our time in meetings with my colleagues). Every day I find myself tucking Benji in or feeding Aviva at 3 a.m. and I realize that my babies are one day farther away from me.
It’s not that I don’t want my kids to grow up, I just want it to take longer. I want more spit up in my hair and diapers to change and play dough under my finger nails. I want more wet kisses and middle of the night cuddles and for bubbles to stay amazing for a while longer. I want to always be able to kiss any pain away. I want to be the protector and confidante and best friend for twice--no-- ten times as long.
Recently I was in a store while Benji was sucking on his fingers and an older woman came to tell me that her daughter used to do the same thing. I asked how she got her to stop and she told me that the daughter did it until she was ten, but in secret. Then she lowered her voice and said that she’d better watch what she says because her daughter is in the store. She also added that her daughter is now in her fifties but that she didn’t want to embarrass her. This gray-haired woman hasn’t sucked her fingers in over forty years but in her mother’s mind it was just last night that she snuck into her bedroom and pulled her fingers out of her mouth as she slept.
The reason those crazies stop you in the street to tell you that time goes quickly and to enjoy every second is because it’s true. I know that too soon I will be looking back at this post* and ten or twenty years will have passed and my heart breaks a little just thinking about that.
The thing is that it’s hard not to mentally rush things-- you look forward to your child sleeping through the night and learning to walk and run and speak and read and he does all that stuff and it’s the best, cutest stuff ever and then he is asking to learn to drive and before you know it he doesn’t want to cuddle with you or kiss in public and then he tells you that he is bringing someone else to the prom. Sad stuff.
At least once a day I remind myself to enjoy a moment. It can be a moment when 2-year-old Benji old and 4-month-old Aviva are holding hands while Aviva nurses or when Benji is singing the ABCs at the top of his lungs while simultaneously clapping and marching though the kitchen or when sweet Aviva is sleeping on me, her warm little body splayed out on my chest as she periodically sighs contentedly. Even in those moments I know that too soon they will be sepia memories (was it Benji or Aviva who used to march through the kitchen while singing ABCs? How did Aviva get the cat to hold her hand while she was nursing? ) but I don’t know how to make them last. I don’t know how to make time go more slowly (other than spending all of our time in meetings with my colleagues). Every day I find myself tucking Benji in or feeding Aviva at 3 a.m. and I realize that my babies are one day farther away from me.
It’s not that I don’t want my kids to grow up, I just want it to take longer. I want more spit up in my hair and diapers to change and play dough under my finger nails. I want more wet kisses and middle of the night cuddles and for bubbles to stay amazing for a while longer. I want to always be able to kiss any pain away. I want to be the protector and confidante and best friend for twice--no-- ten times as long.
Recently I was in a store while Benji was sucking on his fingers and an older woman came to tell me that her daughter used to do the same thing. I asked how she got her to stop and she told me that the daughter did it until she was ten, but in secret. Then she lowered her voice and said that she’d better watch what she says because her daughter is in the store. She also added that her daughter is now in her fifties but that she didn’t want to embarrass her. This gray-haired woman hasn’t sucked her fingers in over forty years but in her mother’s mind it was just last night that she snuck into her bedroom and pulled her fingers out of her mouth as she slept.
The reason those crazies stop you in the street to tell you that time goes quickly and to enjoy every second is because it’s true. I know that too soon I will be looking back at this post* and ten or twenty years will have passed and my heart breaks a little just thinking about that.
*Well, that’s assuming this Internet thing is still going strong. I don’t know about you, but I think that it might just be a fad.
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