there still will be dishes in the sink waiting to be washed
there still will be an ever-growing pile of laundry lurking behind the closed door of our pantry
books still will be waiting on my nightstand, unread, beckoning me to devour words like ice cream {or carrots, these days}
weeds will be poking their heads up through wet soil, begging to be pulled
the internet still will be bursting with conversation and articles I want to read
hours in the day will still add up to 24
and I'll go to sleep at night wishing for maybe just one or two more
But this little guy? He won't be four any more. He'll be ever-evolving, just like always.
All the days of his fourness will have been lived and imprinted in my mind as a memory, if I've so chosen to live my days well
soaking in who he was and who he is
and remembering that the one thing he'll always be beside himself is changing -- he's ever-morphing into newness within the stretched skin of
my first born baby who grew into a toddler
a toddler who morphed into a preschooler
a preschooler who is rapidly transitioning into a boy
who will one day become a man
who will have been built by many one-day-at-a-times of skipping out on dishes to cuddle on the couch while reading about dinosaurs, ignoring laundry piles to romp around the house as pirates in full costume and delaying bedtime to go see how God's painted the sky each new summer night.
And so the dishes, the laundry and the bedtimes will always be.
But he won't always be who he is in this skin, in this now, in this way, so I will make the effort to remember each step of his ever-changing journey from boyness into manhood.
Happy fourth birthday, G!
