In such a short time, motherhood has taught me hundreds of lessons- with hundreds more still to come- but my favorite thus far, is to embrace the little things. If you’ve read my other posts you know that I am a creature of habit who thrives off consistency and predictability. Sometimes that’s positive and other times, not so much. It’s easy to often find myself caught up in the routine of day-to-day life that I don’t always realize how quickly time has moved until it’s already passed. We all know time moves quickly, but I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t always remember to “stop and smell the roses.” Watching my daughter go from a delicate newborn to a carefree toddler in what felt like a blink of an eye, has made me really sit back and recognize how fast the train of time is actually traveling. And, that these moments we so often take for granted, really need to be embraced more.
A couple months ago, I was rocking our daughter as part of her bedtime routine and I realized that she hardly fit comfortably in my arms anymore. Sure, her being more than half my height had something to do with it, but it was the fact that she wasn’t this tiny babe she once was. How did this happen? When did this happen? I’ll be honest in saying there are many days where bedtime can’t come soon enough, as I’m sure many of you can relate. It’s that time of day when your exhaustion begins to catch up to you. All you do is hope for a smooth bedtime so you can finally sit on the couch, throw on your favorite show and drink your glass of wine. But, there was something about this exact moment that made me view bedtime differently. I began thinking about the time, not that long ago, when I was the one holding her bedtime bottle instead of her. Or when she was small enough to curl up on my chest and doze off into the sweetest little slumber. Deep in my thoughts, I found myself tearing up that I hadn’t embraced those small moments a little more. Was it because these moments happened so frequently, as part of our routine, that I didn’t think about cherishing them? So, that night, I decided to sit and snuggle her a while longer as I knew one day in the near future, she won’t want me to rock her to sleep. While we rocked, I soaked up every second of that moment embracing all it had to offer…from the smell of her freshly washed hair, to the slobbery drool that ran down my arm. It was after this night that I told myself I would make a conscious effort to acknowledge and embrace more of these little moments. Time really does move quickly, but it’s these individual moments spread throughout our lifetime that will mean the most, yet disappear the quickest.
