In A Blink

Julie has posted This Too Shall Pass on her blog.

I remember one day, my MIL was rocking Maya to sleep, and one of us said, ‘we don’t want her to get used to being rocked to sleep all of the time’ (my MIL watched Maya a few days a week for us, and would rock Maya to sleep at nap time every day)…my MIL replied that we would miss these times, that they grow up so quickly. You know what? She was right.***My mom said, “Don’t worry, I’m sure she’s grow out of it by the time she’s 35.” Her way of telling me that this too shall pass. And you know what? It did.

And, as often happens with Julie's posts, it got me thinking about when Julie was 5 and Richard was 7 and I really wanted time to pass. Richard was having a hard time learning to read, and Julie was still in night diapers. I really, really wanted these two "problems" to be finished. And what I didn't realize was that these were situations, and only problems if I deemed them to be. And that at the same time these two minor annoyances were going on, some pretty wonderful things were also going on. They were both living home, both funny, both smart as whips, both loving, both well behaved, both helpful around the house. They hadn't yet hit adolescence, which is hard for the child even if the parent does remember surviving it. They weren't confronting many of the ways that life doesn't live up to its PR yet.

Two or three times a day, we ate together. We spent the evenings and weekends together. We played board games and cleaned house and went on picnics and to movies and the fair together. They told me so much about their lives. I still read them stories. We loved and laughed and filled our lives with each other and animals and Alaska. We went berry picking and made jam and planted a garden and . . .

And when Julie no longer needed night diapers, and Richard was a good reader, many of the days of that delightful existence had passed. There were fewer days ahead of us as a family that lived together. Fewer berry picking days. Fewer trips to the lake with the canoe. Fewer Monopoly games.

All of it passes. Instead of wishing part of it away, I wish I'd treasured it more. Because, it all passes in a blink.