BLINK

Ten years ago I held my baby girl for the first time, it was by far the most exhilarating and the scariest time of my life. Drew and I had been gifted from the Lord with the most beautiful baby girl. She was ‘ours’ to raise, love, instruct, and guide.

Immediately I began hearing the phrase…DON’T BLINK! Or she will be grown. As a new Mom I interpreted that as: if I’m not careful I will miss this amazing opportunity of being a Mom. It brought about crazy – PRESSURE.

You are completely sleep deprived and dealing with insane hormonal emotions… someone says, “awe I know your exhausted, but don’t blink – you will miss this one day”

What?!

You have a toddler in the midst of an insane tantrum – in public of course, and you hear from a stranger, “don’t blink – you will miss this one day.”

What?!

As you are dropping your child off to Preschool for the first time and they have a death grip on your leg screaming DON’T leave me!! You hear in your own head, “DON’T BLINK! Enjoy this moment, because if I blink I will be dropping her off at college!”

You get the picture and if you’ve been a parent for more than an hour – you’ve heard the phrase and you have felt the pressure.

How do you savor every moment – even the moments you can’t wait to get through?

You BLINK!

Dictionary.com defines ‘blink’ as a verb, used as action word, “to open and close the eye, especially involuntarily; wink rapidly and repeatedly.”

When I read that I think of all the times that I could INVOLUNTARILY blink, and miss out on my babies childhood.

Oh. The. Pressure.

Oh. The. Mom. Guilt.

But, surely I’m alone in this irrational feeling…. surely I’m the only Momma who has wanted a stage to END!

I mean, potty training – if only I could go back to the long days of negotiations to get my child to use the potty!! Um, NO!

So through various stages in my decade of being a Momma I have learned, a different tense of the word BLINK, “a gleam or a glimmer”.

Every single stage gets more and more fun. Every stage I become more confident in my parenting, and I enjoy my kiddos more and more.

I SEE with every blink, a glimmer that I’ve never experienced before. Each blink I have a new closeness to my children. I get to experience them growing in the gifts and talents that the Lord has placed in them.

I get to look back at ALL of the glimmers, do I miss various ages and stages at time? Of course! But, I get to look forward to new GLIMMERS of their precious little world. I choose to BLINK and enjoy every minute of this journey with my babies.

I have learned, and want to encourage you that, it’s OK to BLINK!

Take the pressure OFF, sure some stages go WAY to fast and some stages feel like they will NEVER end. But it’s OK the BLINK.

Each stage is a new journey filled with new memories and new experiences that you have to blink in order to see, so chose to see the GLIMMER.

It’s OK to BLINK.