The Days are Long....but the Years are Short

I remember the first time I read those words in Gretchen Rubin's book "Happier" - I was a fairly new mom and was still adjusting to this new role and major life shift. Sometimes the days felt endless...arduous...exhausting. Between the marathon nursing sessions, the constant diaper changes, the bouncing, the shushing, the trying to tiptoe around a sleeping baby...the days felt oh.so.long.

I wasn't sure I was cut out for this. And I wasn't sure that Gretchen Rubin knew what she was talking about. If days felt like years...well, what would YEARS feel like in this new normal?

But it turns out, she was more than right. Suddenly, things are different.

At least three times a week my daughter exclaims "On my next birthday I'll be 5!" 

"I know, baby girl...I can't believe it!"

"I'm getting big so fast."

Cue the tears. Seriously. How'd she get this big? How did she seemingly go from the precious newborn I literally spent HOURS everyday rocking and holding to being the little spitfire that loves watching Dr. Pol and doing everything "by her own". And then it hits me. The days are long (SO LONG) but the years...they pass by in the blink of an eye. It reminds me to take time to be present, to write down the funny things she says, to print off the pictures I take of her and her baby sister, to take a deep breath when the days are hard and remember that in no time at all, this season too will be but a memory.

So take heart sweet mamas in the throes of newborn night wakings, the mamas managing the endless two year old tantrums...I know these days are long, but the years are oh so short.

- Alyssa