The three-year-old wears a necktie and
zip-up sweater. Just like Mr. Rogers.
—
Do you ever look at your ten-year-old and think:
How is it—how is it even physically possible—that you were once a teeny tiny little in-arms baby? And not just any baby, but my baby, my own teeny tiny little in-arms baby?
Because you used to cry if I walked away for even one minute, even to pee, and now you’re a tall grown-up-ish sort of person who puts ponytails in her own hair and teaches her little sister to sing loud songs on the swings at the neighborhood park.
And you are, of course, you are my baby, and you are my two-year-old in overalls, and my five-year-old learning hopscotch and my eight-year-old learning to use the sewing machine, all of those put together and your now-self besides. Of course.
But how did you get to be so big? Did I blink? I must have blinked.
Sometimes I think that.
{ 16 comments… read them below or add one }
Melissa, I think that every single day, and mine is only two.
Those first couple of years they grow shockingly fast, don’t they? And then it just kind of sneaks up on me, the fact that these bigger kids are still growing, getting so much closer to Grown every day. But the ‘how’ still eludes me…
Do you think if we prop our eyelids open like in the old school Tom & Jerry cartoons they’ll grow just a little bit slower? Time is whipping by, and my babies, my little sweet babies, are not so baby anymore.
It might be worth a try! It’d give us more time, wouldn’t it? Isn’t that how the theory goes? Or else maybe I did not pay enough attention to physics.
Oh, those babies-not-babies!
Not yet two, and I already feel that way. Blinking back tears.
Thanks for the post.
I feel that way about each of my kids, even the baby. (He’s already not-a-newborn! Sob!) I just can’t wrap my brain around it, around how they grow.
Beautiful Melissa.
Thanks Patti.
How DOES this happen? WHEN does it happen? And how is it that they’re doing all this growing and I’m not aging one single bit? Right? RIGHT?
Oh no, we’re not aging, not at all! It’s just THEM. Isn’t it?
Well, I know YOU look fabulous, anyway.
oh you are going to make me cry. My big girl is 10 – almost 10 1/2 and almost as tall as me and almost as independent and probably smarter and well…I blinked.
Me too. I try not to. But there it is.
Boy, can I relate. My 8 year old can fit into my shoes. When did that happen?
I can’t explain. It makes me sad and happy and excited and melancholy, though.
oohh boy. me too. musta blinked. ten, it comes all too soon.
whoosh. sigh.