Standstill

Sometimes I wish I could freeze time.

When she sleeps through the night – which isn’t as often as we would like it to be lately – Gracie is sunshine.

- I would capture her smile and the joy she gets out of simple activities like chasing the dog around the kitchen. People who say they don’t like children have never heard a baby giggle. It melts your heart and lifts your spirit.

- I would hold onto her new sense of awareness and accomplishment when she follows (or disregards) instructions. The way she crinkles her nose when laughing and mimics our reactions to her antics.

- I would seize her new love of her under-the-kitchen-table fort where she hides and examines her greatest treasures (my kitchen utensils.) I am smitten with the way she adores the things I consider to be mundane, because I'm sure part of her fascination with my collection of spoons, spatulas and whisks is that they are mine.

- I would sweep up her new affinity for affection in the forms of snuggles on the couch and actual puckered lip kisses on the cheek. The moments are still fleeting, but there will always be room for her on our laps and in the crook of our arms.

These things, while not written nearly as eloquently or as beautifully as the images in my head right now, are the things that I created this blog to capture.

So I guess I am freezing time. It is written.

These words will now be here to remind me of her beautiful 17 month old antics when she is 17 years old and driving me crazy.