Tuesday, April 22, 2008

How Time Goes By

As this pregnancy nears its end I find myself nostalgic over my older children’s baby days. They are both still little, yet so big. As when M came to the hospital to meet K for the first time on the outside, my children will appear to grow in the hours between when I kiss them goodbye and when they arrive at the hospital to meet their new sister.

My once small, lithe, boy will seem enormous and his eldest sister, already tall and solid, will appear gargantuan. In comparison, they will seem to not need me anymore.

Yet they will.

I will not have as much time to give to them and I will feel like I’m failing them. This will happen, I am sure of it. But we will get through it and grow together until one day I’ll look around and realize that my older kids have helped me just as much as I hoped to help them.

And even as they seem to grow up overnight, their baby faces will be etched in my mother’s mind forever. When I watch my daughter cross a stage in a cap and gown smiling in her own exuberant way, signaling a ‘thumbs up’ to her tearful mother, I will see her clear blue eyes struggling to focus on a set of plastic keys. When my heart swells as I see my boy wrestling with his own child, his voice booming with enthusiasm for the play I will hear my little boy’s constant chatter or see his chubby hand come to the back of his head to caress his own scalp as he nurses.

In a few short years that will seem long as we navigate them I will be laying in bed assessing my day and realize that I no longer have any babies in my home. And yet, there will still be three in my heart until the day I die.

6 people like me!:

Mayberry said...

Hey, stop making me cry!!

That was beautiful.

Damselfly said...

Spoken like a true mama. Sniff....

Alex Elliot said...

So true! Beautiful post! However, to ease some of the mommy guilt, I can tell you that I found that my older son was a lot more capable of things than I had realized and because I had more time, I never gave him the chance to try anything on his own which I do think was a disservice to him.

motherbumper said...

Beautiful, just beautiful and reflective. and you haven't failed them at all - a failed parent would never ever have this insight.

Your last line made my eyes leaky.

k.rowe said...

That was really beautiful... I'm glad I came to your site. Your words will be with me as I think about my own 2 1/2 year old son and watch him grow.

Thank you :)

~Kelly

Mandy said...

That is so beautiful. Exactly the way I feel and think of my children everyday!!!

 
Blog Designed by : NW Designs