26 Oct Snapshots of Parenthood

My first child was just four months old when we went on our first vacation with her to a small, quiet island in Florida. As I strapped my baby girl into my infant carrier and hugged her close to my chest, I took a short walk outside on the beach.

It is there that I heard the well known advice for the first time:  An elderly lady saw me there and took a good look at my daughter saying, “Enjoy every moment with her. It goes by so fast! She will be grown before you know it!“

I smiled at her, said a quick “thank you,” and went on my way. I pondered her words as I proceeded along the beachfront. As a brand-spanking new mom, I had already experienced some exquisitely beautiful, life-altering moments with my daughter.

I had also, however, experienced some deeply difficult moments with my daughter – moments that, being honest, were painful to think about.

Some of those moments had lasted for days on end (like when she had acid reflux as a newborn and pulled back her head, screaming every time I would breastfeed her) and left me shaking in sobs, wondering how I would ever last at this “parenting thing.”

“I love her,” I thought, “but to enjoy every moment – that seems like a tall order!” And indeed it is when these words are taken literally. To enjoy scrubbing red nail polish off the bathroom walls or the time your kid finds out they can eat play dough and you change a bright-blue diaper just seems messed up (and they both happened to me, by the way).

To enjoy a child screaming “No!” In your face or throwing themselves on the floor in a full on tantrum is just not possible.

So what can those older, seasoned mothers really mean when they speak such words to us scattered, sleep-deprived young moms?

Instagrams of Motherhood

About a year ago, I began to use Instagram, the widely popular app for photo-sharing. I know, as usual, I’m behind the times. As you all know, this social media outlet does a great job of enabling people to use a simple picture (without a huge monologue attached to it) to describe a moment of daily life.

Many people prefer this social media outlet to others because it can be refreshing to scroll through a “photo album” of your friends favorite moments each day.

While it is true that social media does not give us the full picture of what is going on in people’s lives (we have a tendency to post our best moments and memories), perhaps there is something we can take away from this concept and apply to our parenting.

One of my closest friends once shared with me how she was reflecting on that age-old advice of “cherishing every moment” of our kids childhoods. She shared a personal strategy that she had embraced that had helped her to take that advice and make it more realistic.

With three young kids, she has found (like all of us!) that there are many moments of the day that she doesn’t actually want to remember (thank you very much) but that she tries to take mental “snapshots” of her favorite moments with her children each day and share them with her husband in the evening.

The way that she laughed joyfully, throwing back her curly hair when I pushed her on the swing at the park.

The way she savored her popsicle and had red stains all over her face afterwards.

How he snuggled up to me in the morning and told me, “Mama, I love you!”

Dwelling on Our Highlights

I love her idea and have applied it many times during my own long days with four young children. When I lay my head on the pillow at night, I often try to envision not the times that I got impatient or they disobeyed, but the top 2-3 moments of the day when something true, lovely, noble, praiseworthy, or joyful took place (see Philippians 4:8 for a good Scripture verse to memorize on this practice!) When I do this, I find the next day that I start on a more positive, optimistic note.

Another fun practice that we as a family have engaged for several years now is sharing the highlights of our day at the dinner table. This also helps us to forgive, flush, and forget the negative interactions or moments of each day and dwell on the good. My kids look forward to sharing with the whole family what their “favorite moment” of each day was and why.

I think what those older, seasoned moms mean when they tell us to “savor every moment” is just this – to love our children through good times and bad and to let our minds dwell on the lovely and beautiful moments that we have the privilege of enjoying with them each day.

Life is a gift to be treasured. So let’s receive God’s grace for all kinds of moments – the difficult ones, the trying ones, and the glorious ones; And let’s choose carefully which moments we will savor forever, playing again and again in our minds, shaping our thoughts into praises to the God who gave us these great gifts in the first place.