Savoring our time

Yesterday I began the internal countdown to your first birthday. Ten...nine. I remember last year this time I was counting down the days to your due date. I wanted to record how we spent our last days awaiting your arrival. How can that time seem so far away when the last year has passed so quickly? I wish I knew how to write all the extremes of emotions that I feel as this countdown begins. I wish I could bottle them to show them to you years from now. I hope you will always know how much I love you, but I also think that the way we show that to you will change with time. I hope the very pure, sweet ways we show it now will somehow be preserved in the mature, manly ways of your future. I am a little sad tonight that I did not slow down more in this last year to savor our time together. I wish I had not spent so much time early on so focused on doing things just right. Yet I felt those things were so important then and I don't know that I would do anything differently. The snapshots in my mind that play as I review our sweetest moments together are the times that I did slow down. Tonight we were later putting you to bed than I had hoped. Your Dad wisked you to the bathtub while I ran downstairs to start your diapers in the wash and pull your food out of the oven. When I made it back upstairs, your Dad had finished your bath. I wrapped you in your turtle towel and rubbed your head with a washcloth to dry it. I talked to "my clean boy" in the mirror, then off we went to the guest room to finish drying you off and get you dressed for bed. Your Dad and I have a series of after bath/bed songs we sing to you every night. "You Are My Sunshine," followed by the naked song and "Are you sleepy?" (sung to the tune of "Frere Jaques"). As we've sung those to you the last two nights I just felt the need to slow down. To cuddle you a little longer. To remember the smell of Burt's Bees wash on your curly wet hair. To listen to the sweet sound of your chatter to the Caillou book. Tonight I even took the time to sing an extra round myself and lie down next to you. It was only a minute in our busy evening. I am so glad I took it. As I have almost a full year of mommy-hood under my belt, I think that being a good mom is as much about balance as so many other parts of my life. Why didn't I know that already? I'm not a woman who comes by balance naturally. If anybody could inspire me to be better at it, I think you could. I hope I will remember this in our next year together. Remember to balance teaching with fun, discipline with grace, schedules with taking the time to be present with you.