I'm gonna miss this

Since I’m turning into my dad the older I get, I’ve started listening to country music. That or talk radio. Occasionally, I’ll turn on a pop station just to see if there’s anything new happening and inevitably find myself changing the station and thinking “Nope, nothing new. Same old crap.” Anyway, there’s a country song out right now called “You’re gonna miss this” and it’s about how we sometimes take  for granted the different stages in our life. We’re always so rushed to get to the next stage that we forget the beauty of the one we’re in.

I try not to let that happen. For most of my life, I’ve made a real effort to soak up every good, bad, and ugly moment of whatever phase I was in. I’ve always known that once it was gone it would be GONE. I’m realizing this in a very acute way with Olivia lately.

Tonight, I was scrolling through the pictures on my phone of her and watching her grow as I flipped through each one. It was like one of those homemade animation flip books. The faster I scrolled, the quicker she grew until I was staring at her big cheese face in her tae kwon do outfit (Okay, maybe if she’s going to be in tae kwo do, I should stop calling it an “outfit.” Ghee. There.)

I nearly started bawling looking at these photos and I thought “I’m going to miss you so much.” That thought surprised me. Oli isn’t going anywhere. Except that she is. Every day, she changes into a little girl that she wasn’t the day before. And every time she changes, every time I realize that she has stopped doing something that I found so cute, I feel such a sense of loss and mourning. Dramatic, yes. But that’s how it feels. It feels like I have lost the little person I had the day before. And while I am excited to get to know the little girl and future woman (holy hell, that’s scary) she’s growing into, I am also mourning the loss of the little girl she no longer is.

This is the first time I’ve really felt this way about her growing up. For the first year of her life, I was just so ready for her to be older that I would sometimes think “Only 17 years, 3 months, and 4 days until she graduates and moves out.” No, really. I did NOT like that baby phase. That crap is for the birds and there’s not very much of that I miss at all.

But I LOVE this phase. I love this little person who chatters all of the time about everything under the sun. I love this little person who is learning to play pretend and developing relationships with her friends at school. I love this little person with whom I get to have conversations like this,

Olivia: Do you have a wedding ring, Mommy?

Me: Yes, I do have a wedding ring.

O: I don’t have a wedding ring.

Me: That’s right. I have a wedding ring because I am married. You aren’t married yet.

O: Oh.

Me:  And who is mommy married to?

O: Uncle Matt!!!!

Me: Um, no. I’m married to Daddy!

O: Oh

Me: Mommy and daddy got married before you were even born because we love each other very much and want to spend our whole lives together.

O: Oh

Me: And then, because we love each other so much, we decided to have you! Isn’t that cool?
O: I picked my boogers!

Me: Oh

See, I’m going to miss the hell out of these conversations. Because one day she’s not going to say things like this. One day she’ll be a grown up and she’ll use correct grammar when she speaks instead of when I ask her “Who’s going to school today?” and she answers “Me are!”

One day she won’t think it’s the best thing in the world to fall asleep in my bed watching The Land Before Time. She won’t be running in the door to see me when she gets home from school shouting “Mommy!” as she sprints toward me, whisps of her crazy hair flying out behind her. She won’t ask for hot chocolate in that funny way that she says the word ‘chocolate.’

She won’t do a lot of the crap I dislike either. Like peeing in the kitchen chair, or throwing a hissy fit because I didn’t let her open the door by herself, or yelling from the bathroom “Mommy!!!! COME WIPE MY BOTTOM!” And maybe I won’t miss that stuff. Well, I know I won’t miss the pee. I will never, EVER miss the pee.

But I will miss her asking me to help her with things she can’t yet do. I will miss her being so impressed with herself and demanding “Mommy, watch this!” every time she thinks she’s learned a new “trick.” I will miss laying in bed with her, reading poems for the eight millionth time from this Mother Goose rhyme book she loves so much. I will miss singing The Wheels on the Bus and You Are My Sunshine together. I will miss every single car ride conversation I get to have with her on the way to school.

About a week ago, Olivia said the word ‘bicycle’ correctly for the first time and I was shocked to find that I was sad that she suddenly just knew how to say the word correctly.  I already miss so much of her. She is already a different little girl than she was just a couple of months ago. And I love every single ounce of the person she is right this second. But I miss that little girl that used to say “bi-chi-ful” every time she saw her daddy’s in the garage. She is not that little girl anymore. She’s a whole different person and I feel like every time I turn around, I’m getting to know a whole new Olivia. It is exciting and incredible and just awe-some. But it is scary and just a *tiny* bit sad. It freaks me out that every day she’s an entirely different kid than the day before. 

I want to plead with God: PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE slow down! And yet, I am thrilled to someday meet the woman He already created her to be.

On Saturday, Oli and I cleaned the house together. She LOVES to clean the windows and she stands there with her paper towel and she wipes the cleaner off like a crazy person. Not 10 minutes later, she walks past each window, dragging her peanut butter encrusted hands across each one. Internally, I cringe and walk methodically behind her re-wiping each surface. But at the end of this past Saturday night, I walked by our patio doors and saw several Oli sized hand prints scattered across the glass and I didn’t rush to wipe them away. I won’t leave them there forever, but I’ll leave them there for now as reminders of the little girl who is changing every day. Reminders of the days she played on our patio and ate peanut butter with her fingers. Reminders of the time her hands were so tiny they could fit inside mine.

I’m gonna miss her like crazy. It’s a good thing that the little girl who takes her place every day is even more incredible than the day before. Unlike those handprints on my patio door that will fade with time or get cleaned away, each Olivia that I get to know leaves her hand print forever embedded in my heart.