Hindsight

Let's pretend that I don't have huge gaps with my blogging, K?

Let's also pretend that this baby of ours is not already three years old. Pretty much, no matter how you slice it, babies grow up and my heartache would paralyze me if not for the blessing of living life alongside them.

I am not fond of babies getting older. I am madly in love with turned-up noses and dimpled thighs. 

The growing up is sneaky.

Hello little one. Your baby self is gone.

I'm left with some sweet glimpses and cherub glances but what I know from hindsight is this ... there will come a day when even the glimpses and glances will be all but impossible to remember. 

I know this because I have been here before. I've sprawled out on blankets with babies (real and pretend) and held close the sweet little girls who are now so close to being grown that it pierces my heart daily.

And I have a terrifically difficult time remembering the parts I want to and forgetting the ones I don't.

Hurts to forget.
Hurts to remember.
The only thing hindsight does for me is make me want to visit those days so that it feels fresh again.

Their chubby hands around my neck ... pulling me close for one more kiss.
The sound of their voice ... their funny words said wrong one more time ... the bedtime ritual played out religiously. (without my woeful sigh)

These are sweet days.
These are hard days.
I wish they married more poetically than they do, sometimes.

Parenting through childhood is a sweet, fleeting, beautiful once-in-a-lifetime gift.
There is nothing else like it.

It's interesting to hear my oldest two talk about their childhood with such affinity and longing. Makes my heart happy to know that those years were as precious to them as they were to me.

So as this year brings with it immense change from crib to college, my heart is on quite the journey. The highs and lows are intense as I watch from youngest to oldest enter new phases of their lives.

I have stood over the crib five different times and cried quiet tears as I watched the baby sleep ...  legs too long with their feet coming through the slats ... knowing the time was near.

But this is my first time to stand over the bed ... watching my firstborn sleep ... again with quiet tears. 

How could this time be here so soon?

Pray that I don't let the letting go become an idol.

It is a breathtakingly beautiful thing to see these years come to fruition. It is my life's work thus far and by His grace, that work has yielded fruit.

"He has made everything beautiful in its time."