Hey, watch this!
I wait for your wings to grow
because something always comes next.
In the kitchen I’m busy with wrinkle-watered hands
As you crawl and open and learn new sounds
(even sudsy, I know your living-room ways)
and I know just when my minute is up
so I let drip-dry the last plastic cup and enter the room
where Fischer Price is the latest décor and I go to you
(scanning stereo wires still intact)
and my eyes find the coffee table—
you’re standing, rocking and baby talking when only yesterday
you stared upwards from the ground.
I say your name in my proudest voice
and you smile at me in your proudest way
and I get on my knees to play your game
because I can think of nothing better
than feeling proud close to the ground;
that way I can catch you if you fall
or if you decide to fly away.
“I know now that everything changes, and it’s usually too quickly.”*
Having children reminds us of the changing nature of ourselves and our world. Before children entered my life, years could go by and I would usually have external events to mark them. Now, years are remembered for my children’s birth or ages, and our experiences together. (And the time before the birth of my first child feels like a thousand years ago!). Their growth seems rapid and shockingly sudden – and my time with them is all the more precious for knowing that.
* © from 'Being Mummy' by Anne‑marie Taplin, published April 2007