Where has time gone... I may never know

Sometimes the day finishes before I even realize it’s begun and I feel like time is slipping away from me, a little faster every day. I wonder how much I’m forgetting without meaning to. Will I remember the way my baby girl waves at everybody she meets? Or the smell of her head in the morning? Or the feel of her kissing me again and again before resting her head on my chest at night? Or her desire to stop everything and clean up whenever she drops food on the ground?

Over the past several weeks, in a desperate attempt to scrounge up some photographs for my sister, I sifted through the thousands of images we’ve taken of Micaela during her life. Staring at those pictures, it rushes back to me. The sight of her head leaving my body.  The smell of her breath after finishing her milk. The warmth of her body pressed against mine as she slept. The tremor in my voice when I thought I spied a first tiny tooth. The haltering chuckles on squeaky vocal chords. The wobbling steps on chubby legs. The taste of the tears as I tried to kiss them away.

My sweetie enjoying her first swing :)

My worries vanish, my fears subside, my joy and confidence and excitement return. I miss those days - the triumph of watching her lift her head, the ache in my arms when I set her down for the night, the hours spent cooing and humming and rocking. And I loved her then, in her smallness and her innocence, but as time passes so love grows. Looking at those snapshots, those impossibly small slices of what our life as a family has been, I am at peace. The child my daughter is today is incredible and is so much more than the child she was. The love I offer her is stronger and deeper and more all-consuming. The mother in me is better educated and more patient. Yesterday was beautiful, but today is better. Suddenly time seems like it’s going at just the right pace after all!