Forged in Fire

In my most recent blog post, I alluded to the growth that my young family was anticipating. 

Since then, my wife and I have welcomed our second child into the world. Now a couple of weeks removed, I felt it necessary to spend some time charting out some of the many reflections that have cast through my mind within the past handful of days.

For those who have children, young or grown, you know (and know well) the mental gymnastics that occur once finding yourself responsible for another life.

It’s a real and tangible thing – the feelings and racing thoughts that enter your mind with regard to these little humans that you love more than anything. These have been plentiful, and through them I’d like to take some time to lay out one specific reality that has come crashing down.

Those who have been through it will be quick to let you know that the jump from one child to two is the biggest adjustment of all, and from my early assessments, they would be correct. But, perhaps not quite in the ways that I had assumed. 

Of course, one of the biggest hurdles is assisting your eldest child through the major shakeup they’re experiencing – (sharing mom and dad with another baby!)

That said, even more than the inevitable adjustment for our first born has been the rush of flashbacks that set my mind ablaze. The little moments that we’re now experiencing for the second time, that bring one simple phrase to the surface, “I swear we were just here.” This, of course, refers to the feeling of having just gone through the very same things with our oldest daughter. As cliche as it may be, it truly does seem as though it was just yesterday.

Just yesterday that we were burning through newborn sized diapers.

Just yesterday that we were skating by on little sleep.

Just yesterday that we were experiencing all of the things that accompany the tasks associated with caring for a baby. 

Those moments? They’re now keepsakes within our minds.

Fortunately, we are blessed to repeat the process all over again. This time with a much different mental framework. With a better understanding of the process as a whole. And maybe most importantly, the foresight necessary to understand that those moments come and go at such an incredible speed. 

In the blink of an eye, the newborn scrunch transitions into a toddler sprinting from place to place. The short wake windows turn into a full night of sleep. The milk-only diet morphs into chicken nuggets and goldfish crackers.

These precious moments, that can seem so all-consuming, so tiring and so testing – they pass by so abruptly. No sooner than they are here, they are gone. 

This, above all else, has been my primary takeaway from the first couple weeks within this fresh chapter of life. The fleeting moments that have become all the more clear, that I now cherish more than I ever have. The reality of time’s unforgiving nature. The beauty and wonder that lay within these very moments that we too often take for granted and later wish we’d have back.

Don’t wish them away. 

Soon enough, they’ll be nothing but a memory.

Forge on.

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