Growth

In a couple weeks I will surpass the mid-thirty mark.

I always find it bizarre when people begrudge becoming a year older, not only is it universal and automatic but the alternative is death.

Besides, if I could go back to my 35th birthday I would not know our littlest babe and if I went back to 25 I wouldn't know any of them.

I also find it peculiar when parents make comments about wanting their children to stop aging. Same rules apply- universal, automatic, and death as the alternative. 

Yet, there were two moments with our oldest this week that gave me pause. The first is pictured above. Specifically, how is my oldest old enough to hold another person who is wearing a bathing suit that it seems like the one holding her was just wearing yesterday? The second instance was when Sophia started wiggling a tooth for the very first time. I struggled to comprehend how she could be done using this tooth that had just broken through not too long ago. 

This five year old bursting with excitement about what it will be like to lose a tooth, reminds me of myself five years ago. I was bursting with excitement while looking down at a face that had yet to gain any teeth because I knew there was still so much to come.

And there is, because this is not an 18 year engagement. When she is 9, I will not be "half-way through". It is an "as long as we both shall live" kind of love. As the birthday card my own Mother gave me a few years ago read, "I won't wish back my little girl, because I would miss the woman she has become even more". My privilege is a daily witness to these children becoming whom God has created them to be. The gift is getting to see them grow before our eyes, with the hope that it will continue well beyond our years here.

This week Sophia said, "Mom, I'd like to learn how to change diapers, so that you can be free to do other things that you need to do". It was a grown sort of thing to say- not because of the task but rather the reasoning behind it. She recognized a way she could come alongside someone else and lighten their burden. And I didn't grieve that the child whose diapers I had changed was now changing someone else's. I gave thanks for the baby she was, the little girl she is, and the grown one she is becoming.