The Days are Long, but the Years are Short.

It's weird, to think about Henry being older than he is now. And I know I said that when he was just an infant, then when he turned one- I said it constantly. It was hard to picture him one day talking, walking, doing anything other than laying there on his baby blanket making those cute little sounds. But lo and behold, he grew more and more (and more), and at every stage I thought the same thing, surprising myself every time he was suddenly onto the next stage.

Lately though it's been different- I've been having these flashes of what our little guy will be like when he's much older. And I can imagine it, suddenly. I can see his little preteen eyes rolling, I can see that look he gives me now, the one that says, "C'MON MOM..." and I can envision him giving me that look in years to come. His hair, those hands, those running feet, one day all grown up and doing their own thing.

It's wild isn't it, how fast it goes. I know, I know, how cliché can I be? I say it all the time, everyone says it all the time. It's a well-discussed topic on my blog. And before I was a Mom people said it constantly; "oh, wait until you have kids, those days will fly by and before you know it you'll have a grown adult on your hands." I would always smile politely, but in the back of my mind I'd be like, come on- time is time! But as you can probably guess, it is not. Time is indeed much faster when there is a child involved- double speed, triple speed, and through every day-week-month the pace only quickens.

So these little mornings Henry and I have- regular old mornings like today- where we go out to breakfast, go to the park, adventure somewhere new, these days are numbered. I realize this. There's a little hourglass of his childhood whose sand is always falling. And although he is only two and we have a long way to go, it's always on my mind. The days seem so slow sometimes, but I know how quickly they all go by. So I savor them, I put pieces of them in different places- on my camera, in my mind, I stamp them permanently onto my memory.

Henry was once an infant, an unbelievably small little thing that cooed and hiccuped and nestled into the space between my neck and my shoulder. And then he was rolling, crawling, walking, running. He was making noises, then words, then sentences- and now he tells me everything on his mind, stories and hopes and plans. And now that I can see my little guy becoming a big guy, I can finally envision it and see it happening. It's hard and it's beautiful, and true to human nature I want to stop it all at once and keep it going to see what's next.

And I think this sums it up perfectly: "The days are long, but the years are short." Hourglass sand and bits of memory, days and weeks and months, all rolling into the big picture.


Quote source- and be sure to watch the video too.