Part of it probably arises from her 18 month checkup where it was revealed that Maeve is a mere half an inch shy of three feet tall. Another part is that it's still sinking in that she's a year and a half old. And maybe the upcoming holidays and other events in my life are playing a part, too. But it all adds up to me choking back tears at the thrift store when I was looking at size 7 shoes for my little giantess.
But when I get so distressed over how fast her babyhood is leaving the station, I miss the excitement of the moment. Everything right now is growing in my daughter - her vocabulary, her emotions, her range of understanding, and her capacity for nuance as well as for tantrums. All of it is happening right now, right this second, and every minute I waste wishing for her to be smaller is a minute I miss of who she is today.
I can't help but feel like this is all going too fast, but that's easy to say now that we're all getting good sleep, and Daddy and I don't spend half our waking hours worrying about SIDS, and wondering what on earth she's crying about. As my dear Anne Lamott says in several of her essays, you have to try to be where your butt is. So I will try to be here, with Maeve, while she raids the mega blocks and pulls out all her dress-up necklaces and puts them where they belong... on the floor.
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| Mom. I'm right here. |
If it makes you feel that you're not alone in this, I find myself getting teary on occasion when I realize the kids are going to be in college before I'll know it! Because it really makes a lot of sense to think about them leaving for college when our kids are just 4 years old and 19 months old! ;)
ReplyDeletethis is where the part of me that is a youngest child thinks that the solution to missing having a very short human in the house is to have another very short human in the house... ;)
ReplyDeleteSeriously it is so import to remember to appreciate right now and yet somehow so blazingly hard to do!