Afraid to Blink Ashleigh Baker

I’ve been going through pictures tonight. My camera card was full, and as I emptied it onto my computer, I began scrolling back through older pictures. Pictures of the past few weeks and months.

I saw one of John and Merritt just before John left and was struck by how little Merritt was then. Two months old… so tiny, especially when I compare that scrunchy-faced infant with the little guy who now eats real food and bear-crawls at lightning speed around the house.

I paused from clicking on pictures and looked ahead, my mind’s eye reaching forward years from now. I realized anew how short these years are with the little ones we’re given. How little time I actually have before they’re grown. In the craziness of our day-to-day here, it is so easy to lose sight of that and suddenly realize that a month has passed and I barely noticed.

They say that’s how it happens… you’re living life, you turn for an instant…

… and that squinty-eyed grin has become only a memory. That fourth tooth will have come in, fallen out, and an adult tooth will sit in it’s place.

It won’t be long before the high chairs will be packed away and they no longer get messy faces when they eat spaghetti.

The toddler who dunks his head in the water when he’s swimming and yet cries when we wash his hair won’t need floaties on his arms anymore or and will wash his own hair.

The baby who didn’t like the cool water of the pool on the first try (yes, he’s in a floatie IN the baby pool, as per his brother’s request) has already changed his mind since this picture was taken. Now kicking and splashing provide endless fun, whether in the cool pool or in the warm bath.

I know they need to experience life… follow the path God has planned for them… grow up to be men who love and serve the God we’ve introduced them to.

I know that babying them and trying to keep them little will only hinder them. I don’t want to be a mother who holds them back from becoming who they are in Christ. I want to encourage them to grow and learn and be. I rejoice in those changes, day after day.

But I also don’t want to forget. There are so many little things that happen every day that are beyond precious. I don’t want those looks, actions, moments to become just a distant, faded memory.

Things like Troy’s love for giving Eskimo kisses…

Or Merritt’s sleepy eyed snuggle time after naps. Or piling into our bed every morning, giggling together while Troy talks about “ships sailing on the ceiling.”

The way Merritt opens his mouth WIDE to grin and how much he loves to “fly” through the air.

“Let’s be silly, Mommy! Okay, Mommy? Be silly!”

Don’t you sometimes (keeping that sometimes in mind, heh) wish there was a camera capturing every moment so we could look back at particular moments anytime we wished to? To keep the present from simply becoming the past and then fading into oblivion?

When I look at these pictures from a few years or even a few months ago, I have a hard time putting into perspective that the children I have right here, today are the same ones in those pictures. I hardly remember what they looked like when they were babies.

Tonight I decided I need to capture more of these moments in pictures.

It’s just speeding by way. too. fast.