Little milestones, big thoughts

A few weeks ago, we celebrated the one-year birthday of baby Sam. This incredible little premie who caught his poor mother and I by surprise in nearly every way is now a crawling, babbling, cake-smashing infant who is thisclose to toddling and talking. It seems like moments ago he was this helpless little thing in a layette and every drop of formula consumed and every diaper change was logged with the frequency and precision of a scientific experiment. Today he's 20 pounds of laughter, blue eyes and sparsely-toothed smiles. He is, in a word, a miracle.

Today, as I busied myself packing Sam and his two siblings into the van for our typical round of Saturday morning errands, my wife let out a chuckle while slipping a bottle and a few extra diapers into the large red bag that has become her constant accessory for the past 12 months.

“What?” I asked.

“It just struck me that, at 37, I never thought I would still be packing diaper bags,” she replied.

I paused for a moment to roll my eyes and nod in sympathetic agreement, then trotted down the stairs with Sam on my hip and made sure that the two older kids grabbed their coats from the rack on the landing and were appropriately dressed for the day.

My oldest – our firstborn son who is a miracle in his own right – is your typical nine-year-old boy. At times he seems to be every bit the silly kid we've known him to be, with a goofy sense of humor and an easy laugh. At other times, he can seem a bit of an introvert – you can almost see that some of the magic is disappearing from his world and he's trying to make sense of it all. He is a voracious reader and his book selections oscillate wildly... one minute it's Calvin & Hobbes, the next it's Stephen Hawking. He is an incredibly complex kid and never ceases to surprise me.

Next down the steps, just ahead of me, is our middle child – my six-year-old girl. She is, beyond the shadow of a doubt, going to take the world by storm when she's older. Getting her through the teenage years is going to be hell on earth, I can just feel it in my bones. I also sense that she's going to be nobody's fool and, as a Dad, that makes me smile from ear-to-ear. She can be moody, stubborn and argumentative with personality and confidence that's inversely proportional to her petite frame. She can also be carefree, silly and heart-breakingly sweet. Her teacher once told us that she is a natural born leader. I couldn't agree more and I can't wait to see the person she becomes.

Then there's Sam. The little guy who has been a surprise every step of the way. We never intended to add a third branch to the family tree and were shocked when we discovered he was on the way. (I vividly recall the “you're what?!?!?” phone call with my wife.) We were shocked when he decided to make the scene six weeks ahead of schedule. And now that he's here, I can honestly say that I'm amazed by him – by all of my kids, really – on a daily basis.

Growing up has a funny way of altering your perceptions. Deep down I knew that I have always been cut out to be a Dad, but I never in a million years would have guessed just how much I would grow to love and appreciate even the most mundane activities in the ebb-and-flow of daily life. Rounding-up the kids and herding them to the breakfast table, running errands, giving them rides on the lawn mower after I've finished cutting the grass of my very middle-of-the-road suburban home... all of it brings a smile to my face because I know that each of these moments are fleeting.

I think all of this is rooted in a deep-seated realization that time accelerates as you get older. When you're a child, those few days before Christmas seem to be passing in reverse. When you're watching the clock on the last day before vacation, you would swear that the very laws which govern the passage of time have made a special exception for you and your buddies. Once you're out, summer days are endless and rife with adventure and possibility. Parents are immortal. Fun is a God-given right. The opportunities are endless.

As we age, however, and as the gravity and unpredictable nature of the world sinks in, we grow to understand that life is a bullet train punctuated by collections of these wonderful little moments. The lost sleep due to comforting a child who is convinced there are aliens in the closet. The hours spent watching baseball games that end in scores of 37 – 2. The evenings that you spend sleeping on the sofa because your child with the head cold finally fell asleep in your arms and you don't want to risk waking her up. All of these times that can be easily dismissed as necessary inconveniences of parenting are defining moments and gone before you know it. Viewing such events through this lens, you'll quickly come to the realization that this is what it's all about.

Sometimes you catch glimpses of it, like a shape you notice from the corner of your eye that disappears when you turn to look. Other times it hits you square in ways that are as unambiguous as they are breathtaking. The greatest blessings and the most profound sources of joy can often be found in the most trivial of routines.

So despite all the times we've lamented the fact that our sports cars have become minivans, that our vacations typically revolve around theme parks and that a simple date of dinner and a movie now requires weeks of planning, we've finally come to the realization that we wouldn't have it any other way. These times are precious.

Comments

[David]

Life is good! Wonderful post...thanks for sharing!

[Ginger]

Beautiful! So glad you realize all this at a relatively early age. Some people take a lot longer.

[Erin Moore]

Tears in eyes...this is great, I'm going to re-tweet so that others can be blessed by this post!

-Erin

[Jamie Inman]

I am so glad I caught your Tweetoff in time to see this wonderful post. Two things strike me: I no longer wish my time away, i.e. "I can't wait until vacation" because before I know I will be back home! Second, one bedtime my daughter tapped her temple and said soberly, "Mommy, you have to think with your bones."
We think with our bones as often as possible!
Thanks for reminding me.
Jamie