"The biggest mistake I made [as a parent] is the one that most of us make. . . . I did not live in the moment enough. This is particularly clear now that the moment is gone, captured only in photographs. There is one picture of [my three children] sitting in the grass on a quilt in the shadow of the swing set on a summer day, ages six, four, and one. And I wish I could remember what we ate, and what we talked about, and how they sounded, and how they looked when they slept that night. I wish I had not been in such a hurry to get on to the next thing: dinner, bath, book, bed. I wish I had treasured the doing a little more and the getting it done a little less”(Loud and Clear [2004], 10–11)
-Anna Quindlen
Oh, how I wish never to make that mistake knowing that it is almost inevitable. Especially for a personality like mine. Always looking ahead, always impatient for the next thing.
Lord, help me to slow down today and all the days after so that I might really see the perfect gifts you've given me. Help me to treasure every moment, every opportunity to teach, every cuddle, every smile, every tear wiped away from baby soft skin with the hem of my shirt. For tomorrow, she'll be a woman ready to start her own family and all I'll have is memories of when she belonged only to me.
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I don't want her to grow up either... I want her to carry Lumpy around everywhere she goes for the rest of her life, hehehe. Can you imagine...Prom, college, down the aisle, etc... :P
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