No writing today; we had some things to do to get ready for Baby 2.0. And we made a family day of it. My little girl is growing up so fast. Every day she knows new words and can do something for the first time. Today’s word is cookie, a very important addition to any vocabulary. And her new skill is climbing up and sliding down the slide.
Want to see our snapshot in time? Picture me, standing at the bottom of the slide, arms outstretched. “Come on! I’ll catch you!” Picture her dad, up at the top of the slide with her, showing her how to use the handrail that’s just the right height for her and that the stairs are solid to stand on even though she can see the ground through them. She’s scared at first, but she quickly gains confidence. Dad helps her onto the slide the first time. She slides towards me, saying “wheee!” I catch her. She laughs. I help her back to the stairs, and she climbs up all by herself, seats herself on the slide with no help, and slides down again. And again. All three of us grinning in delight because this is a perfect moment in a perfect day.
“This is one of those idyllic moments,” I told Pat. “The kind people imagine when they imagine a family, playing at the park with the sun shining.” The two of us are giddy that the people in the idyllic picture are us, and that the child who terrified us all through a complicated pregnancy is the strong, agile toddler who can get up to the top of the slide all by herself.
We have lots of snapshots from the past few years. We’re always making more. But there have been whole days that went by in a blur, too busy to slow down and look at and memorize a moment. Today we slowed down and looked and twenty years from now we’ll remember the first time Alex learned to slide down a slide.
Life is a miracle. I want to take the time every day to remember that. Because it’s going past whether we slow down and notice or not. If we notice, if we pay very close attention, those snapshots in time stay with us forever.
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