Thursday, January 28, 2010

little and big

In my circle of friends, our oldest children are all between 3 and 4 years old. We refer to them as the "big kids." This makes me laugh a little, that our "big kids" have just gotten the hang of going potty by themselves and still can't tie their own shoes, but it's all about context. They may be the oldest in the crowd, but the reality is that the whole crowd is still pretty tiny.

I mean, Asher will spend more time in high school than he has spent ON EARTH so far.

Think about that for a minute.

I get caught up in it too. He's in preschool, he can fasten his own seatbelt and spill his own cup of milk at the dinner table. He can talk back and ride a tricycle. That's big, right? He finds so much pride in being big, too, in growing up and doing things on his own, that I guess sometimes I believe my own hype. But this afternoon I was reminded of just how little he still is.

Way back, three springs and a LIFETIME ago, Asher used to take his morning naps in the recliner sometimes. He was still too young to roll over, and he was my only child, so there was no brother to pull him on his head or sit on him or poke him in the eye. What a sweet spring, but that's a post for another time. He was this tiny round chubby squirmy little baby sleeping in a huge worn out old recliner, like so:



He likes to hear about it now, and to try to measure just how tiny he was with his hands. It seems impossible to both of us that forehead to toes could stretch out in the middle of that old recliner.

Then, this afternoon, Asher was watching his tractor movie while Silas was decidedly - and vocally - NOT sleeping in his crib, and it occurred to me Asher hadn't dashed back into my room to tell me about the Double Doozie ("He can get the job done!") or Dozier the Bulldozer in a while. I came out into the living room to make sure he hadn't found a Sharpie with which to color the walls or eating the marshmallows out of the hot chocolate or something equally absurd that only a three-year-old would find appealing (and they all do), and I found this:



Curled up with Geoff and Monkey, zonked out in the blue recliner.

He may be three, but he's got a long way to go before he's big.



Happy Thursday all.

4 comments:

Kendra said...

love. it.

Michelle said...

this one just brought tears to my eyes its so cute!

Lisa said...

So sweet!

Anonymous said...

I love it. my oldest is 6 1/2. It is a beautiful thing to find him sleeping like that every now and then. hard to believe that its only been a few short years since I carried him inside me...there are times I look at him now and he just looks so huge and he talks without that baby lisp anymore and reads real words, not just the ones he makes up.
Enjoy every precious day with them, they pass sooo fast.
Steff