Little Stranger: Long days and short years

Pregnancy insomnia has its perks. When I was younger, nights like this drove me crazy. I'd lay awake, growing more and more frustrated, imagining how tired I'd be the next day. But lately I've been welcoming these quiet hours, lying comfortably in bed, indulging in favorite thoughts or letting my mind linger on sweet memories. Some nights, like this one, I sneak out of bed, and spend time alone in the house. The peacefulness is so luxurious.

Have you heard the saying that raising young children means long days and short years? It's yet another parenting cliché that is absolutely true. The days sometimes seem impossibly long--especially since Jimmy still wakes by 5:00--and I often feel like we'll never make it to dinner, let alone bedtime. By the time the kids are in bed, I collapse into my own, trying (usually unsuccessfully) to muster the energy to get up and accomplish something from my to-do list or at least join Billy for a show. Single days can feel like a week, and yet the holidays and milestones rush by, and the kids outgrow clothes that were too big on them minutes ago.

Yesterday Charlie and I were shopping for pants, and as I helped him with his shoes, his foot in my hand, I was suddenly struck by the sight of it. There was a time when every part of him was familiar and mine. But this foot--the weight, the calluses, ragged cuticles, even the boyish shape-- looked and felt foreign. He puts his own shoes on now, so I don't see his feet very often. While I sat on the floor of the dressing room, pondering when and how this foot happened, I had this awful sense of him slipping away. But when he stood and looked in the mirror, adjusting his shirt, smiling approvingly at his reflection, my heart overflowed with pride at the boy he is becoming.

Charlie in his Thanksgiving outfit

Jimmy still fits so easily in my arms. I try to memorize the sound of his toddler voice, the lines of his baby hands, because I know it won't be long until he becomes a big boy, too.