What Evaline has taught me during year one.
Slow down. A little ironic seeing that sometimes life seems so "sped up." Time flashes by. Many mornings, we hurry out anxious to make it to school for her 8:30 breakfast time. However, I find myself taking a longer route home so we can "talk" a little longer. Instead of springing out of bed to grab coffee and get my day started, I linger in the morning while she drinks her morning bottle so I can nuzzle her and hug her and lock eyes, too. My slowing down moments may also explain my subsequent rush out the door. But that's okay. I'll steal these moments as much as I can. And that's what I'm doing really, isn't it? Stealing them? They aren't mine to keep.
Enjoy the little things. That's so cliché it makes me ill, but it's also so very true. Instead of viewing them as a time-sucking nuisance all the time, I like trips to the grocery store -- she adores riding in the cart and making eyes at strangers. And I love watching her do things she loves. I love long walks to nowhere because she does.
Motherhood must be where clichés were born. "Time flies." "They'll be grown before you know it." And more I just cannot think of right now. They are all true. All of them. Sometimes I wish I'd listened to moms before I was one -- but there's just no way you can grasp motherhood until you are a mother. (Another cliché, I believe).
She's taught me more. Much more. I'd spend too much time not soaking her up if I were to sit and write out all of it. The love I have for her is a fierce love. It even hurts sometimes and makes me scared. But it is a true love. An unconditional love. A love that now will go on with time. She is my legacy and I am her roots.
