Cherish
You hear a lot these days about the importance of being mindful. Being mindful means being aware of something. Being in the present moment. If you’re always ruminating about what is past or looking forward to what comes next, you never really enjoy the “now”.
I am in a stage right now where I would love to freeze time. Not that there aren’t challenges (for example, much too early mornings lately) but I love this stage. It feels like a stage that I want to be very mindful for, because it seems like the quiet before the storm. So I am cherishing these days while I can.
I am cherishing Ari’s newfound independence as he has started walking, but enjoying the fact that he’s not running yet. He wants to. And he tries. And he’s a busy busy boy so he will soon be running everywhere. But for now he can only stumble along slowly like a clumsy drunk and I love it. Maybe I have more patience than I have energy but I love this stage.
I am cherishing all of Ari’s new words that are popping up daily but enjoying that they’re still not super clear… so when he asks for something I don’t want him to have (usually a “cookoo”= cookie) I can sometimes pretend I don’t understand and try to redirect him to something better. Or sometimes I legitimately don’t understand and get to have the fun of deciphering his jibberish into real words. There are still a few things (“gad’n”, “tikkaaa tikka-tikka”) that he repeats over and over again and they clearly mean something to him but we can not for the life of us figure out what. Sometimes it’s frustrating, but mostly it’s hilariously entertaining.
I am cherishing the fact that after his bedtime routine, we get to put him down, walk out of the room and he usually puts himself to sleep each night but I am also enjoying that he still needs us to snuggle, read stories and sing songs first. As he continues to get heavier and heavier, and taller and taller (currently 97th percentile for height!), I am conscious of the fact that I will not always be able to hold him in my arms and rock him while I sing his bedtime songs forever. One day, he may be too heavy to rock. And one day he may not want a bedtime song. I am really cherishing these moments now.
On a related note, my parents just bought a cottage and our family couldn’t be more excited. We just spent the first weekend together de-cluttering and getting set up, but there was lots of time to explore, relax, and play too.
Ari is so lucky to have this magical place where he’ll be able to spend his summers growing up, bonding with his cousins and adventuring on this beautiful Georgian Bay island. So much to cherish, now and for years to come!
A few shots of my new favourite place on Earth
Cousin love
I bet some of you are surprised, after months of posting about how hard life as baby Ari’s mama was, and years of posting about my own personal struggles, to read about me wanting to freeze time because I am loving life so much right now. I really am. I know that the past has had its challenges, and the future will have its own struggles too. I know that the past is full of memories and the future is full of change. And the present is not by any means easy. But I know that right now won’t last forever, so I’m soaking it all in as much as I can.
“Most humans are never fully present in the now, because unconsciously they believe that the next moment must be more important than this one. But then you miss your whole life, which is never not now.” – Eckhart Tolle