Time jogs on...

Today as I pulled out a tote of Isaiah's old clothes for Joshua to wear I got a little sad (& not just because the clothes I put into the tote clean now had a smell to them meaning more laundry:). I cannot believe that Josh will be two next month and is about to start wearing 3T clothes. I pulled each item out one at a time, sad that Josh could fit them and smiling as I remembered Isaiah in them not so long ago. Where does the time go so quickly? It seems like only yesterday we were trying to keep a toddling Isaiah from squishing his infant brother, now we are always trying to keep them from squishing each other. Watching your children grow is so bittersweet, on one hand you are excited to watch them learn new things, discover the world, on the other you cannot believe how incredibly lightening fast it happens.

I wish that I could go back and have a conversation with my young self about how fast life would pass by. I remember hearing "before you know it, high school will be over" or "enjoy your childhood, don't be in such a hurry to grow up, tomorrow will be here in a jiffy", but I don't think I really paid attention. When you are young time seems to stretch out before you as an endless entity, full of opportunities and experiences. Don't get me wrong, I don't think that my life is over in any fashion, time still has plenty left in store for me. I just wish I would have appreciated it more in the early days, wrote things down more, took more pictures. My

memory turned out to be not so great (an old high school friend & I laugh because she's the same way & we sometimes can't remember things we did together) and all of those things would help keep the memories fresh. I am grateful for the things I do have, the pictures, old papers, a few short-lived journals and enjoy looking over them from time to time.

My hope now is to do a better job keeping track. I have scrapbooks for each of my boys' first year, I take oodles of pictures, try to take videos, make photo books, etc... to help keep it all in line, to make the memories last a bit longer then my brain seems to want to retain them. More then that I want to remember to treasure every moment, as often as I can. Sure most of my days are full of laundry, dishes, cooking, cleaning, etc... and some may wonder how I intend to treasure these moments (I don't always, I will tell you that). My days are also filled with my

kids doing sweet things, great conversations with wonderful friends and family, loving looks from my husband, laughter & sometimes tears. It's not always a storybook day, obviously (my last blog being a good one to note), but it's still my life. These are the only days I will have here on this earth, God has ordained each one of them and I should always remember to pay attention before they are gone.

There is this old phrase "time marches on", really it seems to jog past most days, some days it seems to even sprint by. Ultimately I have two choices; to enjoy as much as possible to take it all in, or to loose track, going through life in a haze. Time doesn't really care which choice I make, it receives no benefit one way or the other. So I choose to do my very best to treasure my time as much as I can, because it is just going to keeping jogging on regardless.