The first and the last.

Last weekend while in the car I looked over my shoulder and saw this:

Maggie had found the tag on her stuffed bunny, and I thought I remember this. Just another stage in the life of a baby--that few months where tags, any tag holds enough fascination to occupy her for a car ride, or dinner, or wherever we might be. And those little starfish hands, oh my. With dimples over the knuckles and always stretched out straight, such a difference from a few months ago when I thought they just might be locked in fists forever.  I get choked up just looking at those tiny hands.

And here is the difference between your first baby and your third. With your first you feel like they will stay like this forever, like you have plenty of time so it's not important to notice and treasure these small little things. But perhaps that is partly due to the exhaustion and anxiety and change-your-whole-world that a first baby brings. But by the third, man you are an expert. You don't worry about every little fever or agonize over when to offer solids. At least, I don't. This third time mothering experience has been so much more enjoyable for me, and much of that comes from knowing how very quickly it all changes and how you have to stop and notice the little hands playing with the tag on the bunny.

Because you blink and all the sudden they are big enough to go hiking...

And ride their bikes...

Or graduate from kindergarten...

 And I know, I know, it only goes faster after this and soon they will be having a real graduation and leaving. But for now, at night when I read them stories and sing them songs and tuck them in, they tell me they want to live with me forever--and I always say, Yes! Yes! Stay and live with me forever, that is just fine with me.