This moment

By Lucky Tomaszek

When our babies are small, and so incredibly needy, it’s easy to say, “When she’s bigger, it’ll be easier.” And as our children get older, more independent and likely much mouthier, it’s easy to say, “I wish you were still small enough to fit into the crook of my arm. It was easier then.”

The truth is that for some things, it’s easier to have a tiny baby who can’t get into any trouble. For other things, it’s easier to have an older child who can help you remember your grocery list and play outside in the afternoon. There are wonderful moments with children of all ages. The key is to find those moments and live in them.

Not looking forwardThis past autumn, my son Jeffrey suffered an eye injury. The kids were playing school in the bedroom and using the fold-up music stand as a desk. It fell and poked him right in the eye. I heard him scream from my bedroom and went running. The girls were already surrounding him, trying to get a peek at the damage. “He hurt his eye, Mama.”When I bent down to look, I expected a bump, a bruise, maybe some swelling. What I saw was blood tears running down his sweet five-year-old face. I had a moment of panic as I realized that the injury was worse than I had envisioned. He couldn’t open the injured eye and was in a lot of pain. Immediately, I flashed on the image of him permanently blind and perhaps patched for the rest of his life. I could hear the stories from future Thanksgiving dinners, “Yeah, Uncle Jeff had perfect vision until he was five…”

Pushing these thoughts out of my head, I picked him up and headed out to the ER. A thorough exam showed that he had sustained two injuries, one inside his eyelid and the other across his cornea, costing him about 95�f his vision in that eye. The doctors said it would get better. Eyes heal very quickly and they were pretty confident that his vision would restore itself as the wound closed. We dosed him up with ibuprophen and brought him home.As he lay across my lap on the sofa, finally sleeping after his ordeal, I was grateful for the peace around us. His breathing slowed to match mine and his sweet, sweaty little body was pushed in close to me. Relieved by the news from the doctor, I remembered my earlier worry that he would be permanently blind after the accident. If it had happened, we would have all adjusted. Jeffrey is a good-natured kid, and he would have come through it just fine. But our lives would have changed in a very real way.

Remembering my promiseIn that moment, I renewed the vow I made to myself years ago. I was going to try harder to recognize the importance of every day I spend with my kids. This is so important to me, as a mother and as a person.This promise came to me the first time when Lena was just 9 months old.

She contracted a respiratory virus that led to a nasty case of pnuemonitis. We had her on breathing treatments and oxygen for about a week. When she turned the corner, I realized that I had been so looking forward to the time when she could walk unassisted and have conversations with me that I was wishing her babyhood away. I made myself stop looking forward and live fully with her in those moments of babyhood she had remaining.

Living in the nowIt’s not always an easy vow to keep. Dressing three children in coats, snow pants, hats, mittens, scarves, extra socks and boots is exhausting. It’s nearly impossible to get the third one ready to go outside before the first one has overheated. It’s normal to think, “If you were just big enough to do this by yourselves, we could be outside playing by now.” But countless events have brought back my gratitude for what we’re experiencing here in this moment. I’ve been doing this for enough years to know that not every moment is one we’d want to relive. But there’s no way to know for sure if you don’t allow yourself to live it fully the first time around. VS