Four Months

The months keep slipping through my fingers and yesterday, Teresa turned four months old. She really isn't an infant any longer.

Yesterday, I pulled clothes out of her dresser that are now too small for her to be put away in the garage. My heart is pulled in two directions, stretched between the excitement that I feel for watching Teresa grow up and develop her own personality and the sadness I feel as I watch her infanthood pass by. With each tiny newborn outfit that I set aside, I would smell the newborn smell, tears streaming down my cheeks.

I thought about each one of my babies. This spring, Joshua will turn 9, Noah 7 and Veronica 3. For about nine years now, I have watched my children grow, stretching my heart further and further between excitement, pride, love, joy and sadness, reluctance and fear to witness them grow closer and closer to the day when they will no longer be children. In another nine years, Joshua will be eighteen.

If only I could press the pause button. If only I could turn the sand running through my fingers into something more graspable.