Growing Up Too Fast

All too quickly, our week of baby pictures comes to an end. I could easily go another week or more, but I’ll save those for another time. We need to move on here, just as babies move on with their little lives, growing up right in front of our eyes. Growing up happens much too quickly from a parent’s perspective, and too slowly from the child’s. Growing up is why we take pictures, so we have a record, so we can look back and prove that we really were tiny, cute, and cuddly. While our personalities develop in ways that may make us grumpy and prickly, pictures show us that we were once small, and probably even lovable.

None of us actually remembers growing up. If your parents took a lot of pictures and tell a lot of stories, it can feel like you remember that period of your life, but fortunately, we forget the sensation of sitting in a wet, poopy diaper and being force-fed strained peas. We forget the frustration of being immobile, or the fear of thinking that anything, or anyone, not directly in our line of sight was gone forever. Be thankful we don’t remember trying to put everything we touch into our mouths, or that diaper rash that your mom could never quite get to go away.  Growing up definitely has its advantages.