My son is fascinated with my elbow.
I have no idea why, but I know it started around the time he turned 18 months (he will be 3 in December), when we began potty training. For some reason, my elbow always ended up in his face while he sat on the potty and without fail, the first words out of his mouth every time were, “Is that your elbow?” Only he pronounced it “eybow.” He would sit there and stare at it and run his fingers over it, like it was the most captivating thing he had ever seen. And maybe it was, all those wrinkles covering a small bone, LOL. I guess the elbow is slightly weird-looking, I don’t know. He still does it to this day and it never ceases to make me laugh. Like now. We just came from doing potty, where he gazed adoringly at my elbow once again, and as I sat down to write it dawned on me that one day—probably soon—he’s not going to do that anymore.
Just like he’s not going to run to me 8,397 times a day and tell me he just wants to give me a “huggie.” Or call me back into his bedroom after lights out simply to say, “Good night mommy, I love you to the moon.” One day I’m going to walk into the house and I won’t hear his sugary sweet almost-three-year-old voice shrieking, “Mommy, you’re home, I missed you” as he jumps up and down like a loon. Or stomping around the house growling “I a T-Rex, I a T-Rex” over and over again. Or telling his big, bad T-Rex not to “hurt his mommy” as he plays make-believe with his beloved dinosaurs. Or softly consoling his sister—“don’t worry, Isabella, it all gonna be OK Isabella”—after he accidentally on purpose bops her on the head with his stick pony. Or questioning every move I make with “Mommy, what you do, mommy?” even after I’ve already told him a gazillion times.
When you’re in the thick of parenting, dealing with the hardships, the aggravations, the mundane, it’s so easy to forget that your kids won’t be little forever. And then it just hits you like a bolt of lightning. That one day your heart is going to ache for these small, precious moments, the moments you’ve come to rely upon and look forward to every day. And that you’re going to wish upon any star you can find that you could see that baby face or hear that tiny voice just one more time.
But we can’t. We can only live now. We can only love now. So, I’m going to remember to stop and stare and listen and live in these moments, because while my babies won’t be babies forever, my memories of them will last a lifetime.