Treasured

My children seem intent on squeezing my heart until it bursts this week. 


Yesterday, Logan entered his last single digit year. He is now officially nine, and while I haven't been able to call him my baby for quite some time, he is now very, very clearly not my baby. From his lanky, gawky arms to his stinky, man-sized feet, it's abundantly obvious that Logan is crossing over into that awkward stage just before puberty. 


Tomorrow, Atticus will join in and insist on becoming eleven. Still boyish (despite the growing physical signs to the contrary), Atticus is somewhat sheepish about his advancing age. He's a wise old soul--wise enough to know that his years of being a relatively unfettered boy are dwindling. This, of course, makes him all the more precious in this Momma's eyes.


And naturally, there is Mani's birthday next week. He'll be three. Three, I tell you. This morning, he told me all about his upcoming fete: "I haffa birfday cake. I getta digger. I'm a g'wonna thing and thing and danth. And then I'm a g'wonna be free!" 


As if all this weren't enough, this morning, Seven decided to tackle two milestones at once. She has been toying with crawling for the past few days. Yesterday, she made her first tenuous creeps forward. Today her knees managed to communicate with her hands enough to get two creeps at a time. That, to me, constitutes crawling. In a week, she'll be blitzing around the house, opening cabinets, laughing as the boys chase her, evading capture. This was plenty. My heart had its happy/sad moment where I praised God for my healthy, growing, neurotypical little girly and mourned her tiny baby days all at the same time. 


Then she topped it all with this:

Bittersweet, no? As a mother, I'm often reminded of Luke 2:19, in which God relates how Mary "treasured all these things up in her heart." The Greek for "treasured" is συνετήρει, which means to "observe and keep safe." I am treasuring up all of the joy of this week, keeping it safe in my heart. Some day, I'll have time to sit and reflect on it all. But for now, I'm content to live it, letting it wash over me and bless me, moment by moment, milestone by milestone.