Do you ever wonder what moments your children will pick out as their favorites? What will they remember? How much will they forget? We care so much about giving our children special and precious memories but the reality is, we are making these memories as much for them as we do for ourselves.
My babies are so young, perhaps too young to create memories that last forever. But they can feel– feel our love, feel happiness and excitement, feel joy and wonder and curiosity. The moments, for them, are fun and wonderful and certainly the topics of discussion for weeks and months to come. But these are only special forever memories to us and are really just parts of the puzzle that will shape the little people we cherish into the adults we hope they will become.
In the spirit of the summer, we took the girls to the beach this week. We spent a perfect family day in the ocean, on the sand, feeling the wind and the water and the waves.
Lilly was in heaven. Surrounded by her special people- her Mommom, Poppop, Uncles, and baby sister, she boldly explored the waves and the sand, stopping every three inches to chat with other beach going families in her path. Mostly that little girl wanted to be jumping waves, looking for Nemo or lying belly down in the water. But she liked to squeeze the sand too and stomp down sand castles and be held by Daddy or Poppop or Mommom.
And Grace sat wide eyed for hours. Breathing the warm fresh air, watching the seagulls. I dipped her little body in the water and smooshed her toes in the sand loving that look of curiosity that kept sweeping across her baby face. She gets this wrinkly brow look that just kills me. Really I die every time.
It was deliciously hot and breezy and the sunshine was beating down all day long, changing that baby skin I love so much from creamy beige to deep, golden brown. The smell of baby mixed with salt and sand and SPF was dizzying and intoxicating. There was nowhere else I would rather have been.
So maybe my girls didn’t make any permanent memories that day. But they felt and experienced a day so full of life and love. That special day, like so many others has been woven into the web of collective experience that will be so important as they learn and grow and grow to love to learn.
There is such a wide open world out there for our children. We will do whatever it takes to help them see it and live it.
One moment,
And one memory…
At a time.
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