We set our clocks back an hour, yes, but can we ever really go back in time? No. Of course not.

Lately, I have been thinking how quickly our small children move on to the next thing. From mispronouncing a word to saying the word correctly. From laying on their backs at the highest level of a crib to climbing out of the bottom setting of that same crib. Little by little, inch my inch, they overcome any struggle or challenge. Poof, one day they can pick up a crayon and say BROWN. It startles me sometimes when I reflect on how quickly it all goes. I blink and two years go by.

I blink and I know another twenty years will pass and he’ll be telling me some obscure story about his social life, I’m sure, and I’ll be holding onto every word, like I’m holding onto his chubby legs and arms right now.

What is nostalgic to me is ecstasy for him. Each little milestone empowers him even more. And knowing that that is the way it’s supposed to be comforts me as I watch him try to jump off a neatly arrange row of toilet paper which he set on the ground by himself.

Instead of grabbing my camera or trying to scribble it down to record it, I just linger and meet his smiling eyes with my own teary ones. Grateful I am here. Grateful he is born.

But that doesn’t make growth – for him or me – any easier to comprehend.