Making the Moments Last
This week, my eldest started kindergarten, and my youngest grew out of her newborn sleepers. The fact that my five-year-old once wore her ten-week-old sister’s sleepers (as did her middle sister) made both transitions even more acute. I remember laying my firstborn on the changing table in her pale green nursery, changing her diaper, and snapping her sleeper closed. I remember just how she looked at me—with those chocolate-brown eyes and round cheeks—as if trying to covey what she saw before she entered our world. And now she’s in kindergarten.
Countless mothers have told me to cherish every day for these years go by so fast, and yet when you’re in the middle of said days—rocking, changing, soothing, scolding—it’s sometimes hard to be fully present in the moment even while fully aware those moments won’t last.
But then, your kindergartner goes from hugging your neck at bedtime and sobbing, “But I will missss youuuu!” to talking about the friends she’s made and the school projects she’s accomplished, all within the span of a week. Or the youngest goes from sun-bathing under the hospital’s bilirubin lights to giving you a crooked, milky grin each time you meet her eyes. And you no longer need the infant insert while carrying her in the Ergo, and it’s hard to zip the “Little Sister” sleeper shut over her round belly.
Or the typical middle child twirls in her pink and black dress. “Watch me!” she yells and, “Will there be a potty chair at my ballerina school? ’Cause I’m wittle.”
And so, this is where I find myself: a granola-making, car-pooling mom of three who’s watched her eldest stand and stare straight ahead–with those same serious brown eyes and round cheeks–while the headmaster gave a charge to her class; who’s listened to the thumb-sucking middle child instruct her little sister, “You don’t need to suck your fumb, or you will have buck teef when you grow up,” and who’s snuggled the littlest against me all day, and even while washing dishes, folding laundry, or typing this stream of consciousness post, I kiss her head and I kiss her head, as I am full and filled as I try to take advantage of each moment while these moments last.
How do you “remain in the moment” even while accomplishing your day-to-day tasks?
