I brushed my lips across her smooth forehead, and as I parted from the kiss I gazed in awe at the angelic face of my sleeping toddler. I quickly kissed her again. I had to. I had to do something before the moment slipped away.
Time was like that, a slippery rope that left me with a burn after it raced through my grasp. Fleeting moments, an ever-changing reality. The passage of time seemed so cruel and evasive when I asked her to wait.
Wait. Slow down. Not so fast.
My baby, always my baby, struggled to remain confined in the lime green, cotton sleeper. It’s pink roses stretched at the knees where her growing legs pushed.
Do you remember when it fit your firstborn? I asked myself.
Yes. How could I forget.
Big sis was no better at cutting it out. She insisted on growing taller every day, and a lovely young lady looked back at me when in my heart I still expected to see a baby face.
In these quiet moments it seems like time stands still, and a part of me wishes it would. It’s the part that wants to keep rocking in the dim light, and never stop. It’s the same quivering mommy heart that tries to halt time with eager embraces, as if a well-placed kiss will make her stay. Stay little.
In the busyness of our waking hours, and in the chaos of our constantly moving day I don’t notice as much. But when the passing minutes slow in the middle of the night, when the sands of the hourglass match her evenly paced breaths; that is when I see it. I see that she is changing, and so very quickly. Sometimes too quick for my heart to accept.
I almost scream, no! Stop it. Don’t slip away. Let me hold you a little bit longer. Just. Like. This.
I kiss her again, and I breathe in her scent. But the baby smell is gone.
I gaze longingly at my growing daughter, and I capture every detail in my mind’s eye. Stay just a bit longer. Just like this.
And for that moment, she does.
For that moment I don’t think about how fast she’s growing. I don’t wonder what happened to that little baby. I don’t even daydream about the amazing woman I know she will become. Instead I just rock.
I rock in the dark, and I steal sleeping kisses, and I marvel at every single thing about her. I take it all in, and I don’t worry about it slipping away. I simply enjoy it while I can.
Because no amount of astonished gasps, or imagined regrets over not savoring every single second will sufficiently slow the cascade of time. I cannot stop it in its tracks. I can only enjoy it while it’s there.
I intoxicate myself as I drink in her every feature, frozen in that moment while she still rests in my arms. For that precious moment she listens to her mommy, and time doesn’t slip away.
Denise says
Awesome capture of the limited time we have our children as babies…. This is so will written Brie….