For last Christmas, my sister made me a custom 2015 calendar with pictures of my son for the year prior (his first full year of life). Last night I flipped to October and had a momentary trip down memory lane as I viewed the images she chose for this month. Every time I see pictures of my son from last year I am literally stunned. I feel like I'm in another dimension, that the baby in those pictures is someone different than the toddler I chase around now. A year to an adult is most times not a dramatic change. But a year in the life of a small person is so dramatic. And for most of us, until we become a parent, we don't witness these dramatic changes on a first hand basis until we have our own kids.
Think about it: when you're a kid, you don't notice yourself changing. And your friends are all changing at the approximate same pace as you. And the adults in your life are already adults and always will be adults, so you don't notice change in them at all. And when you're an adult, you're mostly with adults, and there is not usually dramatic change in them. But with a baby, they literally grow over night. It's the most surreal thing. I see those pictures of my little chub when he was learning to walk, and I remember scooping him up in my arms and how he fit just right. I felt like he was mostly the same from one day to the next, but now a year later, the change is so dramatic, and that little baby is gone. Its such a weird thing, when I think about it, I'm almost in mourning (my eyes tear up, my husband doesn't really understand. Its a mom thing.) I am so excited by my son's developments and watching him learn and grow - it's so amazing and fun - but I can't deny I miss that little baby a bit.
