These Just Might Be The Golden Moments

I’ve started to think that maybe all those old ladies at the grocery store are right.

It was a gorgeous Sunday afternoon.  

After accomplishing a few things in the yard, and feeling pretty good about it. We packed up the cooler and headed to the pond.  

There was a place in the shade, the water was just cool enough.

And no one seemed to care that in Minnesota the sand is really just dirt.

I got a little sunburnt, there was sand (dirt) in my sandwich.

We forgot the sand toys and the swim diaper my husband put on the baby was actually a pull-up that inflated to the point of bursting.

But, it was perfect.  Just perfect.

I swam out in the deep water with my son.  

Splashed and chased my daughter in the shallows.  

Giggled with my baby as he scooted in and out of the water.  

Watched my husband play and laugh with the kids.

And I grabbed the camera and tried to capture every last second of this perfect little family.

My family–happy, wet, and simply together.

——-

Maybe this is what those ladies in the produce section were talking about when they warned me to “Enjoy these years!”  

This is what they meant when they looked me in the eye and warned me that all too soon these little ones would be grown.

Maybe, after all of my eye-rolling and pained grins, their advice is actually sound and well warranted.

And maybe I should start listening.

Because at that time at the beach, life really was one of the golden moments.  

Golden in a way that, perhaps, it won’t be for long.  

Golden in a way that is so pure and honest it humbles you just to be part of it.

Sitting in the dirt by that pond, holding my baby and laughing at my husband, I wasn’t thinking about whatever it is I always find to complain about.  

Did I have anything to complain about?

Sitting in the warmth of the evening sun, listening to the laughter of my children and the splashing of the water I was aware of only one thing–how wonderfully God has blessed me, far beyond my deserving and far (far) beyond what I can usually see and recognize.

He has been so good to me.

Sometimes it just takes a perfectly golden moment to snap me out of my funk, out of my pity party, out of the mundane and arduous details of motherhood in these baby years.

I can only guess what the future will hold for us–how our family will grow and change or even what city we will live in.  

But I know one thing–my babies will not always be babies.  

In fact, they will not be babies for very long.  They will grow and change and leave.

And these perfect evenings at the beach, when we are all there laughing and eating and playing, will be rare.  

Then they will only be a memory.

And, most likely at that time, I will be that overly familiar lady behind you in the check-out line begging new mothers to cherish these golden moments.  

To forget about the dirty diapers and the parenting differences and the bad sleepers.

To put all of that aside and recognize the beautiful, golden moments before they are gone.

God Bless,