Millions of Tiny Moments: The Milestones that Really Matter

Some days I think I literally see my baby growing before my eyes.

It seems like it happened overnight, a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it jump from toothless newborn to the opinionated little person she is at two.

But really, this journey is made up of millions of tiny moments.

We’ve all heard the cliche “they grow up so fast.” But that does’t accurately describe what happens to our children on a daily basis.

If you watch, if you really watch, you can see them getting bigger. Older. Wiser.

Every second of every day, our children are working on putting things together. Observing. Learning. Imitating. Being. Becoming.

And if you watch, you’ll see the moments where it all clicks. Where they “get it.” And in those moments, you’ll see the pure, unabashed joy when they realize it. Such truer happiness is hard to find. And it is contagious.

Those moments feed my soul.

We worry about the milestones

It’s all about the milestones. We wait in anticipation for these markers of development, to fill in the blanks in our baby books.

The first time they roll over.

Crawling.

The first tentative steps without support.

We don’t want to miss the milestones. But sometimes we do.

Like the mom at work who receives a text from Grandma: “Baby rolled on her own today!” Or the dad who comes home to the ecstatic recap: “Little C walked 3 steps while you were gone!”

Missing a milestone feels like we’ve missed a part of our children’s life we’ll never get back.

But what if I told you that there are millions more?

Soak in the moments

I’m not downplaying the excitement of witnessing those wobbly first steps. But for me, it is just as exciting to see my daughter’s face light up when she understands the meaning of a new word and uses it in a sentence for the first time.

Or watching her laugh with glee as she finally coordinates jumping with both feet off the ground at once.

Instead of feeling guilty about what we miss, we should soak in the moments that surround us. These millions of tiny moments are sometimes so simple that we don’t recognize them — because we are not watching for them.

So start watching.

Take a few minutes to just be with your children. Turn off the TV. Put the phone aside. Just be with them and you’ll be blessed with millions of magical moments.

A funny face.

A snort.

A new word.

A spontaneous hug.

Their first attempt at a joke.

There are milestones and moments enough to enjoy for a lifetime. All you have to do is look for them.

 

More Positive Parenting Resources:

• Enough with the “mom shaming” already
• The positive alternative to “time out” that WORKS
• How to help your anxious child sleep

 

Last updated on November 4th, 2016 at 04:30 pm

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