Next time you go to the beach, scoop up a handful of dry sand, and just try to hold it in your hands for as long as you can. Whether you hold it tight or loose, those grains slip through your fingers, and you have no way to stop them.
The seconds, minutes, hours, and days of my children's lives are these grains of sand, impossible to hold on to, impossible to slow down, impossible to just keep and treasure.
Thankfully, new moments are always trickling down too, just as hard to keep, but just as precious so as to fill the void, but not replace the void left by all the ones that are past.
The song lyric comes to mind, "You never know what you got until it's gone," and that's where I am at with so many memories of my kids. I miss Remington nursing, his naps on me, his little baby laugh, his baby babble and the amazing journey of seeing him learn how to crawl and walk. I miss Grace's funny games, the way she used to ask questions, and even her "sock game." But at the time, while I enjoyed those moments, I was so blindsided by the sleepless nights, his knack for getting into trouble, Grace's tantrums and trouble at naptime that I don't think I appreciated the good moments as much then as I do now, in hindsight.
If you asked me back then, I wanted them to hurry up and get into sports, hurry up out of diapers, hurry up into sleeping through the night, and I didn't know, couldn't know, how fast the little child time goes. When you are in the thick of it, you can't possibly comprehend how those moments will ever be the moments you look back on, because you are too focused on the dream of a full night's sleep, a potty trained child, and a child who doesn't need a nap.
When you spend all day with your kids, and feel that your patience is completed depleted at the end, you dream of the day that they will be in school. When you see kids playing sports, you dream of the day you can cheer for your child.
People try to tell you, "It goes so fast," but you can't grasp it. It is only when you have moved past a stage that you can look back with the wiser eyes and see and finally understand what people were trying to say, because it truly does go so very fast. You can't get your grains of sand back, so you run to a friend, who has just had their baby, or is expecting their first, and try to warn them, try to tell them to hold on tighter... all the while you know that they can't know, and they can't understand until it is their turn to try to warn another.
I almost wrote that I wish I could go back, but I don't. I don't want them as babies again, because as much as I wish I could hold onto those shining moments more, I also love Remington's stories and Grace's gymnastics feats, his first day of baseball practice, and her style as she carefully picks her outfit every day, among many other things that make them my precious almost 3 and 5 year old instead of my toddlers.
They still love to cuddle up to read a book at the library, and I know the day will come when they don't want or need mom to read to them. They still look forward to our family movie night, and I know the day will come that it will be a rare night that I can convince my teens to be at home with us.
I'm doing better at savoring the moments, soaking them in, and trying to treasure the times that they still show that they are little, because I know it won't last forever, and know that even these stages, like where Remington runs to the pitchers mound instead of home base, or Grace tries to jump rope by literally jumping over the rope and never bringing it over her head... will one day be gone too, and replaced with stories they write, his first home run, her first gymnastics competition, his first goal in a hockey game, or whatever else our future brings. Whatever precious moments will come, I will enjoy, but I will also remember fondly the times that have already passed.
p.s. This is not to say that there are not sour moments in every stage as well. As a matter of fact, even in the middle of this blog post, Grace had one of her rare, but still fierce, tantrums... reminding me again of why I definitely have moments where I look forward to growing out of stages as well.
Recent pictures for you to enjoy these moments as well:
This is hard to see, but it is Grace straight up climbing a rope! She got that high all by herself!
