I carry you down the stairs as you hold on to me and rest your head on my shoulder. I set you down on the couch and snuggle in close.
You’re still half asleep as you rest your little head on my chest. I watch your hands fiddle with the blanket. I catch myself often noticing your little, busy hands.
I try to hold them as you continue to mess with a loose string. Your nails have a little bit of dirt under them from the rocks you were playing with earlier outside. Your nails are wide and short and the tips of them are cracking. They bring me back to my childhood. Your hand is still so small as it fits in my palm but it no longer has a round, puffy look. It’s slender and small of a small boys instead of my baby.
They say you can hide your age everywhere but look at the hand of an individual to really see how old they are.
Your hands tell me that you’re no longer a baby.
Just a few months ago I would rock you to sleep every night and hold my breathe as I set you down for the night. Now I set you down in your crib and move the hair from your eyes as I tell you I love you. I slowly back out of the room and blow you one last kiss before closing the door.
The transition from a baby to a toddler is my first real loss in motherhood. An everyday reminder of things I will no longer have with you; but if there was ever a time I wish for the world to freeze it’s now.
Watching you laugh out loud to your favorite shows or running through the house yelling “mama where are you”?! Clinging to my leg as I drag you from room to room or watching you splash in big puddles then cry because you’re wet.
These are the moments I imagined in motherhood, yet knowing they’re already here means knowing they’ll soon be gone. Just like your moments as a baby will never be back, soon these memories will join those ones and my heart already can’t handle it.
I often catch myself thinking about other things that you’ll soon do. I can’t wait to hear your little stories you’ll make up and listen to you tell me about your day. I can’t wait to watch you ride a bike and play with your little brother. I can’t wait to have you get just a little bit bigger.
When you first started walking I wanted to freeze time then too. You were a perfect age, loving and so excited by life. Your giggle was contagious and you were still my baby but I remember thinking if he could just do this then this age would be perfect, if he would just get a little bit bigger.
And a little bit bigger you got.
Every day you do something new, say something new. Everyday I catch myself thinking this is the perfect age and the next minute thinking I can’t wait till you do such and such.
This is the never ending trap. The best trickery of motherhood. The desperate excitement of what the future holds followed by the heart wrenching sadness when it goes.
Motherhood is about wanting the future to come and wanting nothing to change. It’s about wanting time to desperately speed up and stand still all in the same moment.
But as I catch myself already subconsciously wishing away my newest baby’s moments for bigger and more exciting milestones, I’ve learned one thing for certain:
It never stops getting better.
Every age is perfectly perfect in its own way but you’ll always love the next stage in all of its perfect ways just as much. As much as you thought you wanted time to stand still you also wouldn’t trade the current moments for anything.
And I know one day this beautiful, exhausting, sometimes confusing mess of motherhood will look much different. I will look back on these days and tell myself I wish I could go back, but I know that even then I will still absolutely love the stage you’re in.
Your hands will soon grow. They will soon hold mine the way mine hold yours. They will soon have calluses from the life they’ve seen and they will one day have dips and curves and show the years that have passed.
We can’t hide our age from our hands but for every day your hand can still hold mine I know I will pray for time to just stand still and eventually for you to stop getting just a little bit bigger.
Xo,
Karlene <3
