I wonder if you like me are tempted sometimes to wish your children were young again? A glance through the photograph album reminds you of their innocence, sweetness, the warmth of their skin and the softness of their hair. A tiny chubby hand which fits so delightfully into yours. The exquisite, to the point of painful love you feel as you watch them sleeping. Your whole life orbits around theirs.
Today I travelled for ten hours by plane from India. All around us were families with babies and small children. Before seat belts were even tightened at least three of them were crying and as we waited for take off their cries turned incandescent, high pitched screams. One young couple with a baby and toddler have been a study in frantic activity ever since they boarded. As I peep over the top pf my novel and sip my drink slowly I watch as mum feeds baby, wipes his face, gives him a toy and then picks it up off the floor and the checks the toddler who is driving a little car up and down the aisle. Toddler is rapidly becoming overtired, after all we were all up at four and he is cross and grumpy. By the time breakfast arrives he is yelling angrily. Once breakfast is over he eventually falls asleep and then baby joins the chorus. Mum and Dad are a study in perpetual motion, rock the bouncy chair, shake the toy, pick him up, bounce and jig, sit down, stand up, walk up the aisle, walk back again, sit down. Not for them the quiet book or a short nap, they are always busy. Like a well oiled machine they pass their infants one to another reading, soothing, singing, bouncing, settling, feeding, changing.
Do I miss all this? Yes in a way I do, but thank God babies don’t stay babies forever! Parents I applaud you. All of that effort and exhaustion, constant selflessness and devotion.
“For everything there is a season” and I thank God for the season I’m in now!
Heather's ramblings 