Every Little Moment

There are so many blog articles and stories written about how we must treasure every moment of our child's fleeting childhood.  They will be grown someday.  We will miss this.  We will yearn for this.  Make sure you treasure every moment so completely because it will be gone before you know it.

I love my babies.  All six of them. I have loved every phase they have been in and hated every phase they have been in.  I have lain there at night thinking how eager I was for this phase to be over and at the same time, feeling sad because the phase would be over soon.

I read these blogs and feel bad because I do not love a lot of my baby's babyhood.  I hate changing diapers.  It seems every time I get going on something and am really deep into it, be it cleaning, cooking, fixing something, writing, reading, whatever, my baby needs another diaper change.  Or she starts to cry.  If I sit there doing nothing with the expectation she'll have one of these moments, then of course, she doesn't.  I don't love the sleepless nights (I am more exhausted than I have ever been with this sixth one--and she was the most terrific sleeper of them all from three months to eight months) and I don't love the teething.  I hate the rear-facing carseat (she screams the entire time she is in the car, every time, because she can't see me).

I have felt guilty because I'm not enjoying every little moment.

But today I had a realization.

To put my 2-year-old down for a nap, someone has to lie down with him until he falls asleep.  In the bed with him.  He will not nap any other way.  He falls asleep at night without this, but for naps, it's the only way.  As I lay there waiting for him to doze off soundly, I watched him fall asleep.  I memorized his face--the way his red hair flopped over his forehead, the way his eyelashes softly fluttered, his perfectly puckered little lips, his adorably kissable cheeks--and I realized that I do this kind of thing all. the. time.

I spend time every day taking in my babies' faces and memorizing what they look like at this age.

I do this with my ten-year-old.  I do this with my ten-month-old.  So maybe, just maybe, after all, despite the nightly moment when I wish my baby wouldn't be a baby anymore so she would sleep all night, I am enjoying their babyhood and childhood.

But maybe I just don't have to enjoy every little moment.