I love the little moments with her.

The ones I know I’ll forget someday. Not because I didn’t appreciate them, and not because I didn’t try my best to hold onto them. But I know the way time works. These small moments will be replaced by newer small moments. My mind’s eye will update my image of her as she grows.

Her hair will grow longer and I’ll think that’s how long it’s always been, until I look back at the photos and realize how little she had had. I’ll forget the way she holds one hand in a fist and one open-palmed as she claps. I won’t remember that she used to crawl with one foot and one knee in a half bear-crawl. I won’t remember how she burbles her lips with her knuckle when someone blows her a kiss, or just how much she trills like a tree frog, or all the little sounds she makes when I pick her up from her crib after a nap: her squeals, her experimental gasps and lip popping, her tongue clicks. I can barely keep up with her babbling, which changes every day, from “Mamama” to “Dadada” to “Yeaaah!” although we always repeat them back to her so she knows we’re listening. I will have trouble picturing this little girl, who sits with pouted lips in such concentration as she flips through upside-down books. Who will screech suddenly with a mostly-gummy smile, the urge overtaking her. Who will wave, usually with fingertips together, who will bring her fist down like an orator as she yells, who will hold her arm in the air with her hand out and her head leaning into it while she sticks out her bottom lip.

I have memorized all her idiosyncrasies, because I am mesmerized by them; but I do not know that I will remember them. Because I know that one day she will wave differently, clap differently, make different sounds, and I will struggle to recall a time when she acted any different. She is a river that is evermoving, and the moment in which we live is all the time there really is.

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5/15/24