Time passes by

I'm sitting here with a mug of ice cream, sniffling from a cold. I'm thinking of scrapbooking. Wishing that I had started earlier on my daughter's album. Knowing that there is no way I could catch up so that I could show her album off tomorrow at her birthday party. I only wish I had thought of that several weeks ago. I just went in to Snapfish and ordered 131 photos from March, April and May. These are for my daughter's album, as her brother has the online album. Lately I notice that there are less and less pictures of me. I just hate myself in glasses and these stupid bangs I despised even as I had them cut. I hide behind the baby whenever possible. (I'm sure you are thinking that the ice cream I'm eating isn't helping things. But I am losing the baby weight, and I walked today...so I can eat a mug of ice cream if I want!)

My little girl is turning 7. I don't feel like I missed it all. I have watched her grow up little by little, every day but maybe 15 out of her entire life. I try to store up the moments, little sayings she uses, things she does over and over again for a time. The pictures are where it hits me the hardest. Once she is asleep and I look through the pictures, I see so much feeling and I think she is so perfect. It's hard to remember that she and I fought over cleaning and clipping toenails this very evening! Then I look back at a picture from 3 months ago and I think, "Wow, she was just a baby!" When did she get a little older in just 3 short months?

I hold my baby boy and beam with pride as everyone has to comment on his hair, his adorable expressions, his sweet baby love. Mommas and Daddies that know, they have been there, tell me that if I blink he will be graduating college like their son is, it will seem just like yesterday that he was that tiny and now he's a father. These are the things I hear every time I leave the house. I know this. I know it because I have an older child. I realize how short the months are that I will be able to hold him. I watch mothers of teenage sons, and think that I'll suffocate if he won't let me hug him when he gets to the "cool" age. I already hear him behind me and half expect to see him running through the kitchen when I turn around to look. I still am guilty of hoping he'll nap so that I can do laundry, clean, teach or scrapbook. There are times where I think how nice it will be when he and my daughter can actually play together. But when I find a little touch of heaven in the smell of his silky, curly hair, I don't want anything to change. I am so blessed in my family, my home, my friends, my car. I thank God for His many blessings in my life. I'm glad that I have pictures and notes from the great days, to cheer me up on the down days. I never want to forget this time.