“Mommy? I can’t wait until I be ten!”
I hear this remark from my three-year-old on a regular basis.
I don’t know why “ten” is such a magical number in her mind. But every time she says it, I think I’m going to blink and she’ll “be ten,” and her words will echo in my mind like it was yesterday.
The other day I had to go to Target. Daniel watched the older two, and I took Carissa. Usually she’s a great baby for running errands, but not this day. She fussed the entire time.
First, I stopped to nurse her, but she was working on a diaper so she wouldn’t finish nursing. I guess her tummy hurt. I then had to stop again to change her (very messy) diaper. And of course, once that was over, she was ready to finish nursing. The whole shopping trip turned into a ridiculously long nursing-and-diaper-changing experience. In the end I had to run through the store, grabbing the most essential items so I could get back home for dinner.
During the diaper change in the Target restroom, Carissa screamed. I always hate it when my babies scream in public. I had a couple less-than-ideal interactions with complete strangers when Micah was going through his ‘I-have-colic-and-I-scream-inconsolably-several-hours-a-day’ stage.
But mercifully this time two older ladies (one a grandmother, the other a great-grandmother) smiled at me through Carissa’s screams and told me to enjoy these moments because it will go by so fast.
While the screaming diaper moments in a Target restroom are not ones I want to linger in or repeat, I know they represent a stage that passes so quickly. Every evening, I’ve been enjoying extra long cuddles with this, my third child! I never want to forget the feeling of a newborn baby snuggling into your chest, breathing those contented newborn sighs.
Later that night, I held Mara. My big three-year-old Mara.
It wasn’t very long ago that she was my little baby. I told her about it: “Carissa wasn’t born yet. Micah wasn’t even born yet. Daddy would work late at night, and it would be just Mommy & Mara at home. And I would hold my little Mara and tell her how much I loved her.”
“But you’re growing up so fast!” I told her, giving her a hug.
And in her dramatic way, she sighed, “I wwwwish I would! Growing up takes sooo lonnnng!”
I didn’t try to explain it to my three-year-old. I just hugged her, even tighter.
As a child I thought the exact same thing.
But now I know better.
It’s gonna fly. . .