It Won’t Be Like This For Long

This week I spent some time editing photos from our recent family trip, a big reunion with 45+ of S’s family members from all over the world. I’m sure we’ll be looking at these photos for many years and maybe when our kids are grown they’ll look at these photos and laugh at how young we look.

I rarely see myself in photographs. I spend WAY more time behind the camera than in front of it. As I was going through these photos I came across the one big group shot that I’m in and immediately recoiled at my appearance. I then tweeted:

“Looking at family photo from our reunion & I look so sloppy/flabby/yuck. Need clothes that fit & necklines not stretched from #breastfeeding“

All I could see was the mom of the one year old that refused to sleep in a house full of people and who wanted to breastfeed 42,000 times a day. The mom who hadn’t showered that day, had a wrinkly purple shirt, a flabby stomach and ill fitting shorts that showed the widest part of her legs instead of accentuating the skinny part. She looks exhausted. She looks like a hot mess, her boob is almost out of her shirt from the one year old pulling at it and she looks….

She looks….

She looks happy.

She looks ridiculously happy.

She IS happy.

And there was my epiphany.

Someday I’m going to look back at this photo and remember how fun Q was at this age. How sweet it was to just be a family of three, still learning the ropes and having our whole lives ahead of us. I'm going to want to go back to this moment in time.

This time is fleeting.

“It won’t be like this for long. One day soon that little girl will be all grown up and gone” -Darius Rucker

My baby is turning into a little girl more and more every day. Some day too soon she won’t be stretching out my shirts because she won’t be breastfeeding anymore. Someday I’ll have more than 5 minutes to myself to get ready for the day and I’ll miss when she needed me so much that I couldn’t get away.

So, when you see yourself in the mirror after a long day, or in a photograph, be kind to that mama looking back at you. Don’t point out her flaws or get down on her for not being perfectly coiffed and put together. Smile at her and remember that we are extremely fortunate to be able to parent these little miracles. Hopefully we can all look back at this time and say, “wow, I was happy”.