I was up late last night watching Rocco drift off to sleep.
Taking it all in. His dimpled hands, his curled fingers, and the way his lips pucker from the weight of his cheeks….and I began to wonder…

I thought about how many hours I had spent feeding and holding my babies.
More than I surely will ever remember.

I thought about how many baths I have given.
Hundreds, and yet I will only remember a handful.

I thought about how many diapers Gabe and I have changed.
More than we could ever keep track of and thankfully not remember.

I wonder how many sandwiches I’ve made or apples I have sliced.
Impossible to remember how many.

I wonder how many books we’ve read.
Thousands at least, but more than we could ever keep in memory.

I thought about how many prayers we have said with our children at night.
Countless to be sure….but I can’t recall all of them for the life of me.

Time is a meanie sometimes. It seems to steal away the most precious days of my children’s lives, and at the same time linger a little too long at 5pm when you have cleaned up one too many messes and lost your cool more than you care to admit.

A friend of mine shared this quote:
“The days are long, but the years are short.”

And then it clicked. As I was watching Rocco sleep and cursing time…. it all made sense. These little daily rituals of cleaning, feeding, and caring are all working towards something more meaningful than we can fathom in a seemingly insignificant moment. These routines are but a flash in this short life on earth. And if we choose to put more than a hurried rush into them, we just might see their worth. They will be moments and days that amount to very full years. Years that carry our children in the darkest and brightest of their days, that create a safe haven to lean into when they are missing home, a  solid rock to stand on when they need reminding where they came from, and a clear path for them to walk when the road divides. I think I will try a little harder tonight to slow the routines and make them count.