Things That Have Already Passed, Things That Are Gone

This afternoon, The Baby was hanging out being petulant and almost-two and I took this photo and suddenly there she is, older – this girl who will be here very, very soon.

Also: BOY, does she like Popsicles! And pretending to burp, and saying “HUP two FEE four!”. Good times, good times. She still falls asleep on my lap right after lunch, crawling up with a blanket and her sippy cup, all her compact self curled against me, her littleness and her sweetness. Her hair smells like cherry shampoo (or “PoohPOO”, as she told me the other night. Chelwy PoohPOO.), the two of us just hanging out, half asleep.

We went out for dinner tonight, a Maundy Thursday event hosted by our Minister (and last night I stuffed Easter eggs for a community egg hunt at a friend’s house. Yes, I am such a social butterfly.). All three of our kids were running amok – The Boy had a slight fever, not high enough that he was noticeably sick before dinner but high enough to make him slightly off all evening, poor chatty boy. The Girl was sullen and self-conscious, acting ENTIRELY like I did for pretty much my entire childhood, and The Baby was just a shrieking menace, so by the end of the evening – which ended pretty early, what with one of the kids being sick and all of the kids being bad – I had some fairly severe maternal embarrassment going on because my kids couldn’t even behave through one whole meal and feeling this nasty combination of guilt at my awful mothering and self-pity. Then we drove by the house I lived in until I was 7 and my daughter pointed out that there were little rocking chairs on the front steps, and my son said that they were their for goblins and cats, and I was so charmed by them once again that by the time we got into the house it didn’t matter that they were bad and loud and snotty and feverish because they’re my own oddball lovely children, these people that I’ve made. And also it was their bedtime.

Cats and goblins stay pretty much the same, barfing on the rug and scratching up the furniture and peeing on any wet towels optimistically left lying around. With children, though, you turn around and suddenly you see 20 years from now in their eyes, the morning when they can suddenly fit their big sister’s favorite red sweatshirt (with the sleeves way rolled up, but still), and it’s hard to know that they won’t always be crawling onto my lap at naptime, that this will pass so fast. I’m glad to see them bigger and smart and older but sorry, too, this weird nostalgia for my life right this very moment, this time I will look back on when I am very, very old and forgetful as the happiest time of my life, and miss the smell of cherry shampoo on a baby’s hair.

Beck writes at Frog And Toad Are Still Friends.