These Moments

I recently read a blog post in which a mom re-counted a sweet moment with her daughter. A moment. That's all we have, really, is life lived in moments. As humans we can't possibly drink in every detail of minutes or hours, we simply couldn't process all of that. So we live in moments.

Babyhood is filled with those sweet moments, those times of quiet repose with a baby gazing with wonder into your eyes. They become fewer and farther between as they grow into toddlerhood and beyond.

Yet I was recently reminded of those days as my youngest has struggled with the somewhat recent time change and a vacation which threw her schedule off kilter. She would sleep in if I could let her, but as two working parents, we have to cajole and urge our children out of bed so we can get to work.

"Carry me," she says, holding her arms up like a toddler to be picked up. She refuses to get out of bed but agrees to get up if I carry her down the stairs and into a kitchen chair to eat her breakfast.

And so I oblige her, picking up my big kindergartener, who wraps her legs around my waist, lays her head on my shoulder and holds on tight. Suddenly she is 1 again.

I hug her tightly, kissing her hair and carefully treading down the stairs. She is heavy and ungangly with her long legs and her torso which is slipping further and further down my body. She smells of shampoo and sleep.

We arrive in the kitchen and I set her in her chair.

"Thank you, mama," she says, and give me a peck on my cheek. Upon sitting in her chair she suddenly becomes a 5-year-old again, insistent on pouring her own milk and giggling with her sister over a burp.

But for a moment, a sweet, brief moment, she was my baby again.