3 Pictures of Raigan

These 3 photographs don't really have anything in common, I just like them. Well the last two have the fact that they were taken one right after the other in common, but I still just like them.

It's really neat to watch these two little girls grow up. I'm pretty lucky to be their mama and get to be the one to see them them grow firsthand, day to day.

"Um, excuse me mom, can you wait till I wake up to start taking my picture?"

The whole, I can do it myself has begun way sooner than I had anticipated. It breaks a little bit of my heart that she's growing out of her babyhood so fast. When she was a newborn I never wanted to put her down because I knew days like this would get here so fast. Now she won't even let me hold her for more than a few minutes because she's a busy toddler.

When her and her sister fight I see a flash into the future of their teenage years and I know it will be here faster than I can even imagine. Sometimes I feel that inevitable mother guilt that grips us all when I don't spend every second soaking up my children and their babyhood. Or when I'm not totally fully present even though I'm physically present.I've been thinking about this a lot lately. Being there, really there, fully present. I wish I wish I can be for the rest of this summer that is flying by, and the rest of this year that is now halfway over, when did that even happen?

Balancing it all is so hard and sometimes I feel as though I'm pulled in a million different directions. The days whiz by and before I can even plan how I'm going to balance time for myself, my kids, my marriage, keeping the house, work, and everything else in between, the whole week is over.

Someone should just go ahead and invent a device that can pause time or at least slow it down a little bit, thanks in advance.