© Lianne Bacorro Photography
Wow. It’s been a lifetime since I last contributed to the blog. My last post was after I had just given birth. After that, things totally took a turn for the busy! And now, my second child is a year old, my eldest just recently lost two of his teeth. Already I’m feeling like I am on the short end of the stick when it comes to time! Just the other day my husband and I realized that, in four years, our eldest would be ten years old. Ten years old. I can’t even begin to fathom what I’d do.
When I watch my kids, I notice how they live in each moment. Have you ever stopped to watch your kids do the same?
It’s different for each child. I have a one year-old baby girl and a fidgety, curious six year-old son. Each day seems to stretch on forever for my six year-old, like when he anxiously awaits a new toy or the arrival of his cousins visiting from out of town. (This past week, his long wait has been his dental appointment, which we’ll go to later today.) After last Christmas Day, he asked how long it would be til the next one and sighed how it would be “forever” until we got there.
For my daughter, it’s like each minute is precious, and five minutes is an eternity away from me. (She’s a high need child, you see.) She cries when I step into the bathroom for a shower. (I’ve mastered those 2 to 5 minute ones, have you?) She complains when I leave for a meeting for an hour. My mother once said, “Imagine if your source of food and drink left you for a couple hours. How would you feel?”, and I now understand my daughter, haha! Poor thing.
We recently had a photo shoot at home with a photographer who specializes in unstyled, “day in the life” pictorials. It was a refreshing shoot, because there wasn’t any time set aside for makeup or hair, or vignette styling or wardrobe changes. It was just us, whiling the time away doing our everyday duties of play, work, rest and play again.
“Why would you pay someone to take photos of you when you’re just in your house clothes?” someone asked me on social media. In my head I replied, “Well, why not?” Because of time constraints and a clingy baby and a rambunctious preschooler and a busy-with-a-new-biz husband and a home in need of care…. I have literally no time sometimes to grab a camera. I should, but I had a friend who took on the task instead. And I’m glad she did, because I saw in those 200 or so photos what I realize I often miss or gloss over any ordinary day. It’s not the activities — I notice those, of course. It’s what threads our days, the feelings of delight, frustration, love, and passion that I sometimes don’t notice. Perhaps I needed someone else to look from the outside into our ordinary everyday, so that I could see just how much I get wrapped in time.
I watched this video recently, which perfectly describes why it feels like time speeds by the older we get. I appreciate the perspective here, and I can vaguely remember how time seemed to stretch on forever when I was a child! But very vaguely, really, like a distant memory. I only hope that as time goes by, I will like my children, live in the present.
I hope to not take each life-stage for granted, and not waste time navel-gazing, grumbling or losing myself to the squabbles of the mundane.
“Life is short…
Life is long…
but not in that order.”
I couldn’t have said it better.
How do you feel about time going forward, moms? How do you view time alongside your children’s point of view?
This is an original post by Martine De Luna for World Moms Blog.
Love this post. My son is 10! I don’t know how that happened! Time was eternal when they were small — some days seemed to never end. Now weeks speed by. My solution is traveling together to slow down time. We are embarking on another move and I am thrilled. Taking time to be together, being in the moment can be a challenge but it’s such a worthy goal. Thanks for posting!
10! I remember 10…and now my kids are 15 and 11. Astonishing. We just found a box full of early childhood stuff–comments from teachers, old journals–the sort of things that my kids scoff at me for keeping. They marveled at the way time has passed and how much they have (and have not) changed. It’s remarkable — like ghosts, I see them as babies even as their bodies become those of man-type people. Enjoy these moments!
Martine,
I love the everyday photos! They are beautiful, and I read your post like we were chatting away.
From wheeling my first born around in her stroller, parents would come by and say, “Enjoy them while they’re young. It goes by so fast. Mine are grown up!” It was and continues to be a common theme of advice.
I can’t stop time, but I can choose how I spend it to some extent. I try to live “in” the moment. It is difficult, but when I make it a priority, I find myself having more of those moments. This post is another great, well-needed reminder, Martine!!
The best explanation I ever read as to why time seems to go by quicker when you get older is this; “When you are 1 year old, one year is *your entire life*, but when you are 40 years old, 1 year is only one fortieth of your life.”
I clearly remember thinking that my first baby was *never* going to be born (he was 10 days overdue). That “baby” is now 22 years old and is married already! If I knew then what I know now, I would *definitely* have spent more time playing with him and less time on chores. I would have answered his endless questions with more patience and I would have read that extra bedtime story!
I honestly wish that I hadn’t been so worried about him achieving his “milestones” that I failed to enjoy the stage he was at. It was like I couldn’t wait for him to start talking and walking … only for then to want him to be quiet and keep still!
A fellow World Mom once wrote that motherhood is made up of long days and short years. As Dr Seuss would say; “That is truer than true”!