Take the time to hold on tight and be mindful of what means the most.
I am a thief.
I don’t steal money or clothes or anything so trivial—instead, I steal moments. These moments don’t happen on big days like the first day of school or an awards assembly. Oh no, most stolen moments happen on ordinary days. They’re the best kind too, because they surprise you against the contrast of an otherwise bland day. When life seems to simply be a continuous round of meal prep and laundry and dishes, a beautiful moment pulls me out from what feels like a gray background. A moment shouts in my face, “This means something—pay attention!”
When my children were young, I received well-meaning advice from family, acquaintances, and even random strangers at the grocery store. People repeated that I should enjoy “it.”
“They’ll grow up too fast,” one lady said to me in a checkout line when I obviously looked like I’d had enough. “You’ll wish they could be little forever,” a well-meaning neighbor would quip when we slugged our way back from a walk—a strung out parade of whining kiddos, a bike and scooter in my arms, and skinned knees all around.
I smiled on the outside but screamed in my mind. I would not miss this. But I kept smiling and plodding along, wondering why I wasn’t enjoying this phase—filled with sleepless nights and Groundhog Day–like days and mac-and-cheese lunches.
“This means something—pay attention!”
Plod along is all I did, until one day when I realized what “it” people were referring to.
On a very normal day, I was returning home with my three littles from a walk. My son, Chaim, had been awake since before the sunrise and was more ornery than usual. He fell asleep in his stroller—two hours before his regular nap time—and I hoped he would transfer to his crib easily. I prepped myself to make a quick transfer, doing a sort of shuffle-run to his room before he could wake up.
As I walked into his room, I allowed myself to take a moment. I allowed myself to feel how his relaxed body melted into my own. His arms hung limply next to his body, and his ginger curls were matted against his forehead from the morning heat. He was getting big, sturdy enough that it was difficult to carry him in my arms.
My other children were outside playing, my husband was at work, and instead of following the regular routine, I simply stopped. I stood there with my little boy sleeping on my chest, one arm under his soft little bum, the other hand on his small back. His usual rough-and-tumble body was now soft in my arms, and I held him.
And became a thief of moments.
As I stood there, I realized that when people say, “They grow up too fast,” they’re not talking about the times when your child throws a full-blown tantrum in the checkout line at Walmart. They aren’t talking about potty training or sleepless nights or combing out tangled hair. They aren’t referring to forgetting to pack diapers on one of those horrible day trips or eating chicken nuggets for every lunch or trying to fit three kids in a shopping cart with the groceries.
No, they are talking about the moments when love happens. When you can literally feel love and nothing else. The moment my little boy sagged into my body and I only wanted to be there holding him was love. It was a moment I needed to finally grasp just what being a mother actually meant. It did mean keeping my kids alive—feeding and clothing and teaching them. But it also meant enjoying them. Especially taking time to enjoy the enjoyable moments, which help you get through that tantrum in the grocery store.
Without stealing all the good moments from the daily grind, life can be a gray background. With these moments, life is sprinkled with dazzle and delight. It’s sprinkled with love.
It’s been years since that first stolen moment, but it happens time and again when I’m told, “This means something—pay attention.”
And so without anyone noticing, I steal another moment.
Brooke Krim lives with her family in Ogden, Utah.
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In Letters from Home Y Magazine publishes essays by alumni about family-life experiences—as parents, spouses, grandparents, children. Essays should be 700 words and written in first-person voice. Y Magazine will pay $350 for essays published in Letters from Home. Send submissions to lettersfromhome@byu.edu.
