The best age.

I’m standing in the newborn isle at Target, eyeing all of the teeny-tiny and adorable infant things. A friend of ours is expecting, and I was preparing a basket of essentials to bestow upon her at her baby shower.

I reached for the nose-frieda (that snot sucker thing that is equally disgusting and miraculous) and as my fingertips made contact, I was brought back to when Elsie was weeks old. It was sometime between nighttime and morning and her nose was clogged and she was having a hard time breathing. I grabbed the bulb-syringe and we tried our hardest to suck the globs out of her nose, her six-pound body resting on my lap, my body all-but resting on my bed. I still remember the temperature of the bedroom and the size of Joey’s eyes as he stared at me as we tried to figure it all out. How could anyone have left us alone with this beautiful baby girl in the middle of the night. We had no idea what we were doing. We were scared. I was scared. That moment passed and later, I learned about the snot sucker and how I wished I knew about it during the first weeks of life.

I filled my basket with all of those memories. The extra-strength Desitin, the infant Tylenol, the newborn diapers and the pacifier with the stuffed animal attached. All of it brought memories flooding back on the newborn stage, my heart aching a bit because well, I thought it was my favorite of all the stages. The snuggles, the smells, the sounds. All of it is just so delicious. I felt a twinge of mourning. But then, I thought about what comes next - the smiles and the steps and the sensations of first foods. And then I thought, gosh, that was my favorite. For sure, full stop.

And then there, in the middle of Target, my phone dinged. New email. It was from Elsie’s elementary school and her first-grade photos were in. I clicked the download link.

And I was breathless. She took my breath away. And I thought, no, age six. This is my favorite stage. Because she’s funny and fun and smart and witty and thoughtful and inquisitive and it is just no-holds-barred, my favorite stage.

But what about one-and-a-half-year-old Leo, who generously shares his meals, morning, noon and night with his dogs and who has discovered how to cheesy-smile on command and who has such big feelings balanced by big belly laughs and I wondered, well shoot. How can this not be my favorite stage?

And if I really wanted to throw back to some favorite moments, some of them are before we earned the parent badge. Those times were great too and I miss them.

How do we mourn the passing of time and the ending of our favorite stages while being present in the place we’re in? With our eyes and our hearts wide open, I think.

I’ll be honest here. Every stage is beautiful but also really, really, really hard. There’s no escaping that. With the newborn snuggles comes sleepless nights, weeks, months. And every stage is just a different flavor of hard.

A friend who has kids quite a bit older than ours shared the best advice I think I’ve ever gotten (outside of our pediatrician suggesting the snot-sucker) - She cautioned me to be able to leave the past behind so we can fully appreciate the time we’re in, without worrying too much about what was coming next.

It’s hard. But, she’s right.

The journey is my favorite part.

Thanks for that, Erin <3

XOXO

Meagan