July 13, 2010 - If Time is Water, Does Anyone Have a Big Freezer?

Has anyone ever figured out why tiny toes and tiny fingers and tiny smiles and tiny babies grow so quickly? Or why is it once we're old enough to become parents, time just slips through our hands like water, and no matter how hard we try to hold onto it or close it in our fingers to slow it down, it finds a hole, a crack, a crevice to run out of and keep on moving. Forget world peace and the U.S. economy and life on other planets - I want someone to figure out how to slow down time!

My little lovely turns 3/4 of a year old today. Really? Is it possible that I already need to start thinking about planning a first birthday? My memories are still sharp of the first time (of MANY to come) that I felt her hiccuping in my belly. Or the first time I tried to guess if that was her kicking or just gas. Or all the times I sang to her while rubbing my belly. Or how she seemed to like it when I took showers and the water pounded against her warm, snug little home. Or how I felt my heart grow day by day, right along with my belly. Can we really be closing in on one year outside of my belly?

I'm so anxious to see what every day holds for us, what new discoveries Georgia will make, what new move she'll figure out today, what new adventure we'll have tomorrow. But at the same time, I'm anxious for it all to slow down, relax, take its time and just live each day twice, or maybe three times. Every time I look, it seems like she's become a big girl all over again today. Yesterday we thought she was grown up, but look at today! It's even more so.

I know it's the conundrum for every parent - you want to see your baby grow up, see what she will do, be, become. But at the same time, you want to hold on to the innocence of youth, the sweetness of today, its ripe taste of childhood. We love the memories of our own youth that our children bring back to us. Memories long-since covered in dust, but brushed off and taken off the shelf with the arrival of our own little. They're feelings we want to hold onto - but time keeps flowing out of our hands.

So my little lovely, you will keep on growing - the leaps and bounds kind - and I will keep on trying to hold those moments in my hands. You are beautiful.