I often think of children as “markers in time”.

(At the risk of sounding like a Bold & Beautiful intro) It’s like an hour glass with sand dripping from the top to the bottom… the second grain to fall literally doubles what is there, the change is so incredibly stark and obvious. By the time the last grain falls you barely notice it.

For me observing our children has allowed me to get present to constant change, to the flow of life that is happening always but I too often ignore.

So to mark this moment in time, here are some snapshots of M aged 5yrs and Z aged 1yr.

What they are saying:

• M: “will you tell me a story from when you were little” which is one of her favourite pass times and conversation starters
• Z: “byebye, mama, dada, ello” and of course “baaaa” said with various facial expressions, pointing and levels of forcefulness to communicate one of about 100 options –

What they love doing:

• M: playing with her mice, cleaning the car, drawing princesses and fairies, jumping on the trampoline while we read her books, watching dvds, polishing rocks
• Z: vacuuming the floor with a turned off vacuum, pushing the toy pram around the house (with a soccer ball in it), “liberating” packets of pasta and rice from our pantry and depositing them all over the house

What I am loving about them:

• M: how she is starting to tell me stories after years of us telling her stories
• Z: how he gives me about ten kisses when I lie with him for his day time sleep… its now a ritual that we do before he even thinks about sleeping

Some of their quirks:

• M: how she likes to be prepared which often means taking such things as umbrellas, torches, water, a slinky and a range of other “potentially useful” things when we pop out of the house
• Z: how if I fall asleep before him he sucks on my right eyebrow to wake me up

What I want to remember from today:

• M: how for the first time for weeks she said she would help me make breakfast but instead proceeded to be, in her words, a “kitchen band” by banging various pots and pans while singing a song about being a tree (with lyrics like “i cant go anywhere but my leaves blow around…“). Way too much creativity for me first thing in the morning… at the time I was wishing she just helped with the porrige but appreciated it once I ate something
• Z: how Anne helped him shoot his first basket on the basketball courts nearby, by holding him up and helping him throw the ball… and how he laughed with every inch of his little body

So much more I could say but time keeps flowing.

It is both remarkable and sobering to know that these moments, these snapshots, will never come again. In times of clarity I can let their passing focus my attention on what really matters… being aware and appreciative of what is important and present to this moment.

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