Time {personal post}

Dear Time,

     I have a bone to pick with you.  You haven't been kind to me, and I think it's time to go through the proper channels to have this addressed.  We were once best friends, you sped right along, I was young and wild and care free. Then I got married and put on a few pounds, but overall you were still pretty great to me.

Then I had a baby.  I spoke with you about this baby and I told you to slow down.  But you didn't.  In fact you went straight up against me and sped up even faster.

I tried to savor every moment, enjoy the time rocking my baby, enjoy the toddler's first steps, enjoy girl time with my 'big girl', and I even enjoyed taking my 5 year old to get her ears pierced.  But this has got to stop.

I even tried to overtake you by having another baby.  You helped me out for a little while, colic seems to have slowed time down DRASTICALLY...but then...you sped right back up again.

Now I hold my little boys hand at night as he prays to God and thanks him for the letters K and B, the flowers and hearts, mommy and daddy, SanSan and GiGi, and his car.  He grew up.  You let him.

I hoped that the third time was the charm, but it turns out I was wrong again.  I had another baby, and he even came early (but I asked for that one).  He was little bitty, and the snuggliest most mommy-addicted thing in the world. 

But you still came along and made him big.  He walks and makes sounds, feeds himself, uses big boy cups, and soon he'll pray for random shapes and items too.

This is my final plea to you to stop.  Time is stealing my babies from me and replacing them with toddlers, and even big kids.  They don't want to snuggle 24/7, or need my consoling for every little bump on the head.  The little chubby girl cheeks have given way to cheek bones that ask for mommy to put blush on them.  The baby boy that couldn't talk, now talks back with attitude and purpose.  The little bitty baby with fat dollops on his feet and wrists and nose and belly...is walking it all off!!  

I know that this letter will probably accomplish nothing, and my kids will eventually go to school, and read novels, and write papers, and drive cars, and get married.  But then someday they'll have their own babies, and I'll get to snuggle up with them.  I ask that you will then again consider my plea to slow down.  Let my baby's babies stay babies forever.