You’ll Miss These Moments
Do you remember the song “You're Gonna Miss This” by Trace Adkins? If you’re a 90s baby who grew up on country music, you probably remember this song. It pops into my head so often these days. Between the fighting toddlers, the constant work, the never ending pile of laundry. You see, the daily crazy is really REALLY hard to enjoy sometimes. As I am writing this, they are screaming around my bedroom while I'm trying to work.
Anyways, back to the point. In the song it explains the fleeting moments of life that sometimes we tend to rush to get to the next best part. I am VERY guilty of this. The first scene is a newlywed couple, where the bride tours the new apartment with her father. She is excited, but tells her father about the extravagant plans for the future of a big house filled with babies and dogs. Her dad tells her to slow down, enjoy this moment, and relish in the time you’re in. Fast forward 5 years later when there is a plumber working in her home, filled with the kids and the life she wanted to rush into. The kids are crying, dogs are barking, and she is apologizing for the chaos that is her home. The plumber laughs and says his babies are all grown up at 36 and 23 years old. He says “it’s hard to believe, but you’re gonna miss this. You're gonna want this back. You're gonna with these days hadn’t gone by so fast. These are some good times, so take a good look around. You may not know it now, but you’re gonna miss this.” (Trace)
Now, take a look into our daily lives as parents...and how we watch our children grow. I blinked and my newborn baby who was hooked up to tubes and wires in the NICU is now 3.5 and likes to jump off things and run super fast. It feels like time has gone by so fast it's unimaginable. And the worst part is when I go back to look for memories of him as a little baby I have to scroll through the cloud of thousands of photos (I’m not kidding it’s like 20k photos in between then and now) and try to find the images I took of him back in the day when I was still working out of my 2 bedroom apartment in Everett. It gives a massive perspective on the change and growth that happens so fast with our children. I dedicated myself to make a change for our next baby who is now 18 months old. I have artwork hung everywhere now. Physical memories of the last two years has so much more of an impact on being able to remember where we were just 24 months ago. It hold so much more value to me than simply getting a reminder on facebook every couple years.
Ok I will get off my artwork soap box. My point is, holy crap where did the time go?! How do we measure a year in the life of our children? (it’s exactly 525,600 minutes btw). They change so much in the first year (or 3) of their lives that one week passes by and they have a full set of teeth and a full attitude. So what do we do to make these moments last longer? My best piece of advice from one parent to another is to be more conscious about the moments. I like to sit on the couch and turn my phone off and study my children visually. This makes me notice my son’s freckles coming in, or how my daughters hair is starting to curl in the back. When you’re planning out your week, try to take one morning or evening to have a family movie night. Will it go over well with toddlers? Not unless you put on a kids movie but hey, this won't last forever right? One day, they will be teenagers and the house will be quieter. Toys won't be everywhere, yet replaced with artwork on the walls, game consoles, soccer cleats (omg soccer starts this spring, maybe). Perhaps if we sit in the moment just a bit longer, it won’t fly by so fast.
