El Nino's Big Adventure

Time is such a confusing thing. I am told to enjoy this time with el nino because children grow up so fast. I find myself watching children of all ages as I ride the bus to work imagining el at that age and what it will be like for us. When I am with him, I cherish the time we have together, and it occurs to me how I longed for him to be older during the first three months, which were challenging to say the least. I wanted him to be a bit older because I wanted him to sleep longer at night, giving mommy and daddy a few more hours of uninterrupted sleep. And now he is at that stage, and it is glorious.

As I walk from the subway to work in the morning, I think how did I get to this point when only a few minutes ago I was holding el nino in my arms giving him his milk and kissing his brunette head? As I walk from the subway to work, I think later today I will be walking this path in the opposite direction and will feel surprised to be here again so soon. And then I reach the weekend or the next Monday and am surprised to have come this far already. I try to cherish the present, and it slips away so quickly into a new present. And then I think of my cousins whose sons and daughters are grown and how it must feel for them to see their adult children when it was only yesterday they were picking them up to ride on their shoulders. I can only imagine.

As I ride the bus to work, I hear two little girls sing in carefree abandon, I see a young boy reading a book about space with his mother, I pass another boy as he lugs his cello up the bus steps, I watch a father find seats for his sons, and I think of el nino and all the learning and growing we have ahead of us - his first words, first steps, first song, first dance, first solid food, first meal in the highchair and all the subsequant words, steps, songs, dances, meals he will share with his father and me. And then I am home again from my day at work, and I take el in my arms and smell his neck as I kiss him here and there and all around, touching his soft skin and gazing into his brown eyes. "What a precious being you are," I croon into his ear as he smiles or laughs out loud. And I remember wondering when will he do these things. And now he does them, and it is... miraculous.