The Family Math

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about Noah and how two years has felt so long and so short in the grand scheme.

There’s so much joy in having a toddler, especially this time of year when things are new and bright and shiny, and there are all sorts of explorations to be embarked on and discoveries to be made. I had the joy recently of teaching Noah to blow the wispy tendrils from a dandelion. I showed him his first robin’s egg a few weeks ago. Every day there’s something waiting that wasn’t part of his world the day before.

I have a tendency to want to document these moments because I want to be able to remember them for always. I whip out my phone and post a quick video to Vine or snapshot to Instagram, or I take dozens of pictures and select one later to share with family. And more often than not I miss the joy of the moment because my face is buried in a little 3×2″ screen.

To Noah, all of these moments are pure happiness and discovery, and he loves me and wants to share them with me. He won’t always feel that way (and he shouldn’t, as sad as that makes me). But right  now. Oh, right now. I’m one of his best friends in the world, and he loves making me happy.

And it does make me happy to see him taking on the world one leaf, stick, mud puddle and squirrel at a time (he loves running after the squirrels that are populating our front yard this spring). It makes me remember what it was like when things were new.

There’s a verse in Scripture that has been on my mind lately, in Luke where it talks about Mary, the mother of Jesus, hiding things in her heart. That’s what I want to do with these memories we are making — wrap them up, safe and secure, and tuck them away for myself, knowing that things won’t always be like this and that I will miss these days, even the ones that are hard.

I want to take in the smiles and laughter and the hugs and wide-eyed wonder with my own eyes. I want to know the joy of experiencing these things again newly, because now I am enjoying them for the first time as a mother. Maybe that means putting down the camera sometimes, and maybe it means using words written long after the little explorer is in bed to remember the little details that will fade  as the years pass.

This is a happy time of life, and I want to remember it always.

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