I Blinked

"For a thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by,

 or like a watch in the night."

Psalm 90:4

Recently my family and I took dinner to some dear friends to share a meal in celebration of the birth of their second child.  In spite of the fact that we were in the presence of a 2 1/2 year old, an 18 month old, and a 3 week old, dinner was peaceful and enjoyable (well, as much as it can be for our friends who are in the throes of the sleep deprivation, emotional and physical chaos, and adjustment that a new baby creates).  Despite the one year age gap between them, our toddlers were having a large time together, eating dinner at their own tiny table for two, then playing peacefully with only squeals of laughter alerting us to the fact that they were in the room with us.  Then it hit me.  Square in the forehead.  Right between the eyes.  My baby isn't a baby anymore.

Every mother has this moment, I think.  The realization that, at warp speed, the infant whom you firmly believed would never allow you to sleep another full night for the rest of your life has become a real person.  He doesn't need or want you to feed him anymore, or even cut up his pizza for that matter; he will eat his full slice like a big boy thank you.  He no longer has to be watched constantly while in someone else's home to make sure he doesn't touch or break things or otherwise get into something he shouldn't.  He's not attached to your leg or constantly climbing up your body out of fear or shyness or whatever it is that makes little ones cling rather than interact with others.  At some point, unbeknownst to you, he stopped being a baby and started being a little boy.  And even though you've been present for virtually every second of his life from birth to this moment, you never saw it happening, not really, until just now.

As an older first time mommy who moves in circles of other first timers who are 15-20 years my junior, I am aware that life and experience give me a slightly different perspective on the dog days of parenting.  In no way am I saying that younger mothers don't appreciate their kids or treasure many precious moments in the infant, toddler and pre-school years.  But a different level of appreciation accompanies the birth of a child to a forty-something first-time mother who had tossed in the towel ten years earlier believing parenthood wasn't a part of God's plan for her.  There has never been any doubt that I am a much different, much better parent now than I would have been in my twenties.

Unlike my twenty-something self would have been, I am determined to appreciate and embrace and commit to memory not just the happy, funny, easy moments, but the tedious, mind-numbing, pull-my-hair-out ones too.  And for the most part I do just that.  I typically start my day reminding myself to soak it all in - the great, the good, the bad, the ugly.  I'm conscious of little grins, quick hugs, and long snuggles.  I take deeper breaths and have a much calmer approach to incessant crying, temper tantrums, whining, and willful disobedience.  I get excited about back yard picnics, swimming lessons, trips to the playground, and reading 12 books at nap time.  I remind myself constantly that gibberish, toddler-speak, and a general lack of adult conversation or other intellectual stimulation is a finite phase, and all too soon I will be lamenting the loss of this stage.  A few short years ago I would have had no patience for any of this; in fact, this life that I treasure would have been pure torture for my younger self.  Now, lest I paint a false 'Ward & June Cleaver' image that anyone who knows me would balk at anyway, let me assure you I'm a typical mother too, experiencing things that are common to all of us regardless of age.  Are there days when my husband comes home only to wish he'd been asked to work late because the house looks like a tornado touched down, there's no dinner on the table (or on the stove, or in the fridge, or in the cabinet), and not only are Toby and I having massive meltdowns, but it's highly possible that the stuffed animals are crying too?  YES!  But...it's much easier for me to recover from such days, evaluate them for what they are, and even find bits of humor and snippets of future great memories in them.

My point?  Knowing myself as intimately as I do, I am acutely aware that the mommy I would have been as a 26 year old with a two year old bears no resemblance whatsoever to the mommy I am now as a 46 year old.  The younger me never would have reflected on a week that consisted of little to no sleep, maybe two showers, a thousand poopy diapers, a little person lying in the kitchen floor kicking and screaming, saying the word "no" every 30 seconds, never going to the bathroom alone, and six loads of laundry piled on the bed waiting to be moved to the floor so we can sleep and thought, "these are the moments I never ever want to forget!"  But that's what I do.

My real point?  As much as I treasure this gift of motherhood that came to me much later and very unexpectedly, and as determined as I am to burn each day into my brain, time flies.  It gets away from me even as I am intentionally willing it to stand still.  I can't stop it.  I can't freeze it. I can't slow it down.  Holding my friend's newborn, it seemed like only yesterday that my little man was so tiny.  Yet as I watched him playing with the 18 month old, creating a soundtrack of their giggles in my brain, the clock was ticking.  A wise man named Kenny Chesney once sang, "Don't blink...You just might miss your babies growing like mine did...Trust me friend a hundred years goes faster than you think, so don't blink...life goes faster than you think...don't blink."

Obviously, I blinked.