My Reasons for Embracing Half-Full Cold Coffee Mugs

I’m in my raising littles season.

Where naptimes dictate what we do and when we do it. Where step stools are tucked in between furniture. Where you can find smudgy hand prints on all glass surfaces, and nicks and scratches on floors and baseboards.

I’m in the season of noise.

You can hear life in our home: my kids’ squeals as they play, the thuds their feet make as they run from room to room, and the same songs played over and over because those are our favorites.

I’m in the season of early mornings and half-full cold coffee mugs.

I embrace everything this season comes with because seasons change right before your eyes. The snuggles with little bodies and the little outstretched hands that reach for you will subside and eventually look so different that you’ll forget what they used to feel like.

So, I embrace these things because seasons don’t last forever.

Do you remember that adorable little quirk your child had when they were little? Do you remember how it made you wish you could freeze time just for a second so you could take in every moment of that little quirk? Do you remember when they stopped doing that little thing you loved so much?

I think about this every time I watch my baby’s nose wrinkle and eyebrows furrow when she looks up questionably. This expression is hers. I don’t know if I will see her make this face when she is on her way to kindergarten or if she’ll show hints of it when she’s a grown woman, but for now, I engrain it into my mind.

We don’t know when quirks or seasons will pass because these changes happen so gradually. We are only left realizing one day that things are a little different.

When did she stop rummaging through the Tupperware drawer every time I opened it? When did she stop having full-fledged conversations only she understood on her pretend phone while walking around the family room?

These are the things you try not to forget. They’re little things that mean so much.