Because just yesterday

This isn’t a cliche commentary on how fast time goes —

Or maybe it is.

Because just yesterday my oldest boy was the same age as this newborn here, with tiny fingernails smaller than the eraser on a number 2 pencil.

And now, my oldest boy is holding this tiny one and looking into his grey-blue newborn eyes with a protective joy emanating from him like beams of pure sunshine. And how did that happen?

And how did it happen that just yesterday I was a 2nd grader playing Barbies on my parents’ lanai in Hawaii. And Barbie loved Ken and Ken loved Barbie and they had a dream house and a Ferrari —

And well,

I don’t have a Ferrari, but a dreamy home, maybe. Because even though it’s often as messy as the bun on my head and loud as that rooster out back, it’s so very full. Of life and purpose and reminders that God exists. How could he not?

Because just yesterday (last month, really) I pushed forth my fifth-born whom I hadn’t met until that day — but yet, as soon as he arrived and filled his lungs full of air, I felt as though he had always been here. We exhaled together and I laid him to my chest and I was his and he was mine as if it had always been that way.

And just yesterday (literally, this time) I was in the grocery store with just the brand new one in a carrier around my waist and a man walked by, looked at my newborn, then pointed to his 4-year-old and said to me smiling: It won’t be long.

And I smiled back a smile that said: And don’t I know it.

And not because I know much of anything — but because not long ago, I gave birth to my first-born who is now old enough to teach me how the light switches are organized in our house (“The one closest to the door is always the overhead light” — and now why didn’t I know that, living here for 3 years?) And suddenly, I’m carrying my 5th born through the cracker aisle and am as close to 40 as I am to 30.

Does time really creep in minutes and hours or does it just jump forward every once it awhile when you finally get the chance to actually sit down and look around?

They will grow. I will grow. We all will grow. And one day we’ll look at each other and say with a smile: now how did that happen? “Because just yesterday…”

I’ll always be their Mama, even when my eyes are as cloudy and wrinkled as a newborn baby’s. And they’ll always be my children, just like this soft, sweet new boy that sits warm in my lap sleeping. As much as we change, we never do.

But this isn’t a cliche commentary on how time goes so fast; rather, an ode to joy. A song of praise that we have any time at all to fill with life and love and each other.