They Grow Up So Fast (Not!)
If there’s one thing I’ve heard repeated more than anything else—even before my son was born—it’s this: “They grow up so fast.” There are other versions of this saying…Time flies…It seems like just yesterday…but the underlying message is the same.
But here’s the thing: When you’re in the thick of it (which my husband Brad and I are—River’s a little over 20 months old), nothing seems fast. Minute after minute, day after day, wake cycle after nap cycle after wake cycle, is fully experienced. Perhaps my friend Britt, mother of twin boys and a daughter, put it best when she said, “The days are slow but the years go by fsat.”
Regardless of what I’ll have to say about how time moves by the time my son is an adult, I’ve been trying to capture a few moments here and there as he grows. One photo a week is my (very informal) goal, tagged with the date so that—when the time comes—I can go back and organize an album or slide show to my heart’s content. I’ve also been known to share a few “dispatches from babyland” on my Facebook page.
I haven’t taken the deep dive into apps for recording just how fast “time flies,” though I confess there are some alluring opportunities out there nowadays. I stay hands-free from devices 90% of the time I’m with my kid, but maybe once he’s older or if you’re reading this and have older children or a desire to document your own experiences, an app like 1 Second Everyday would be useful. Here’s a video from another mother that I found, that’s actually pretty cool:
Meantime, it’s time for me to sign off. There’s a toddler on the other side of this office door and he’s calling me name…