If you stare at something long enough it will blur. The haze will stay until you blink, clear your view, and look again.
I have been a mom for 17 years, six months and one day, I’m still caught off guard at the job of this.
I will sign a paper or get asked a big question or straighten the seam of a sock that oh.my.gosh is about to make someone’s toe fall off and see the little or not so little person in front of me and wonder if they were not just plopped here, right in front of me, all arms and legs.
Have these blonde and brunette and stubborn and kind people really changed so seamlessly each day that they’ve tumbled into little and medium and big? Where was I? Did I see it? Every subtle change that turned babies in my arms to people talking and tugging and asking?
Days full of shuffling under feet, climbing over arms bleed together. Cereal. Missing gloves. School pick up. Refereeing. Bedtime. Do-it-all-again.
So much blur, so much move faster, we’re late, come onnnn guys.
Somewhere in the keep going of it all there is growing happening and where am I? Am I here doing the little so I don’t always see the big? I see them but I don’t until they are sleepy-headed right in front of me, standing four feet taller than the day they entered their own world.
I set down my coffee and take them in from head to toe.
Blue eyes look at mine and I know they came from me. The curve, the color, I see myself.
I blinked and they were 5 and he was 3 and she was 17 and I am the mom, trying to hurry up and slow down and focus but not close my eyes for too long because I could miss something that’s been happening all along.
As our day begins I step consciously from one moment to the next, careful not to miss this one in the blur.
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This is beautiful. You know, we can’t ever hold on to the moments we really want to savor in life, but reminders like this one tell me that you do all you can to make the moments matter. What a kind, sweet, and wonderful mommy you are to all of your children.
Gorgeous, Jess. You know I adore you, right? Lovely, lovely piece.
Sometimes things can be really blurry with with a good blink of an eye we can make things clear;)
Exactly! If everything could just slow down and hurry up (especially when we are late for school). You have said it so perfectly. Thank you! xoxo
oh, girl!! we wrote about the same exact thing today! {down to the eyes connecting us to one another}. like woah. i don’t know where this time goes. i seem present, and then… i wake up, and i have to shift, adjust to these new little people before me. i swear they weren’t there yesterday, not like this. not this big.
Oh girl. So poignant and beautiful. And SAD–because that is exactly what I do, and I don’t want to miss these beautiful moments. Thank you for this. This is an excellent post to start off the week.
Beautiful! I look at my three-year-old and I can begin to believe how big she is. I can’t imagine how that feels with a 17-year-old! Let alone four children. You amaze me. Always have:)
Oh, dear lord, so perfectly said. I love this.
Oh, this is amazing. Just amazing.
“Am I here doing the little so I don’t always see the big?” You nailed it. That’s exactly it. Ticking through the list of to-dos, laundry, dishes, more laundry, errands … and I drag my 4yo along with me and forget to *see* her, take her in, enjoy her.
So well-written, Jessica!
Yes. It happens exactly this way. It seems we are feeling the same nostalgia today.
I really don’t know how you do it. You have a gift with these words and that heart. You truly, truly do.
This has me tearing up. This is it exactly. The day-to-day. The blur. The ‘how did this happen?’ The ‘where is the time going?’ Blink and time passes.
Yes…to all of it. It really does go by that fast. And it’s so bittersweet, isn’t it. I need to keep reminding myself to slow down because it will all be over before I know it.