Five minutes drag by and suddenly a day has passed. It's the same with children. I watch
everyday to see how they grow. More often it's behavior: new words, better pronunciation, attempting to tell jokes, actions.
But sometimes I can actually see them grow. Seemingly overnight. Poof! They're bigger.
It's the most amazing thing about
motherhood so far. A shoe doesn't fit - overnight! A button pops, a dress just
isn't quite long enough although it was last week, ankles show beneath too-short pant legs. And still these are secondary reminders of
the constant growth. We see the charts from one check up to the next, measured
in percentiles from one year to the next. 50th
percentile for height, 20th for weight, following her own growth curve... But what does that mean in real
life? What is the difference between x
feet tall and x feet one inch?
Sometimes, the difference of one inch is the difference between toddling safely under the kitchen table, and bonking a forehead on the edge as he tries to steal a snack. Or fitting nicely under the tall kitchen counter, and smacking a temple into the corner as she runs past.
Every so often, we can see our children grow while the clock slowly ticks on.
