My parents have a lot of pictures hanging up in their house. My grandparents did as well. Perhaps that’s why before I had little kids with sticky fingers I had pictures all over my tables and end stands.
I remember some of the moments in their pictures, and some are from when I was too young to remember. But still, they are embedded in my brain as reflections of what my childhood looked like — the oldest of which are tainted by the yellowing hue of late 70s film.
Those pictures always seemed wistful to me – reminders of our youngest days. The glory days of our infancy. The days to look back on once the busyness of the time has faded.
Just a week or two ago, I was walking past my refrigerator, and I saw the school pictures of my oldest three. They are currently hung with magnets on my fridge because I don’t have time to figure out a more permanent place for them. Passing these pictures made me realize that these days are the moments our family snapshots will be composed of. These will be the days whose memories will be seen through the rose colored glasses reserved for the glory days of early childhood. One day we will look back and our sweetest memories will be of these moments.
It gets hard to remember this sometimes when life gets busy and whines and sleepless nights and spit up rule our lives. But these really are the days we will remember, the days we may long for. The days that will provide the backdrop for the girls’ earliest memories and our fondest.
So in the last few days of this year, I’m going to try to slow down and enjoy these moments. Celebrate them. Embrace them.
Because we all know time is much too fleeting, and it can steal the moments we most want to hold onto.