Where do the years go?

 As I sit here watching my almost 5 year old run around the living room wrestling with his 8 year old brother.. I'm struck that I still hold him like he's a 2 year old.. 

I'm holding onto what is fading or has already faded fast! They used to smell like a newborn baby.. now they smell like dinner and the mud they were playing in or the fact that they missed another shower! 

He now says most of his words correctly, there was a time when he wasn't developed enough to form all his words.. now that he has correct pronunciation, it's not as cute. 

We used to walk around the block.. and I had to walk slow so he could keep up... now he rides a bike and I jog to keep up with him.. maybe I'm just getting old?!  

Looking at him play, his fat cheeks are not as fat anymore.. he's stretching out and getting taller.. where did that little chubby dude go?  

I kick myself each time I don't drop everything I am doing to read the book he asks me to. Thank God, most of the time I do put down what I'm doing when he asks. I stop building the shed to play hockey, I stop gardening to have a catch. There are still those times that selfishness kicks in and I say no, and the heartbreak that I see is evident! 

The questions and conversations that never end, they will end one day, when he realizes that he doesn't need me or Mom to have a conversation, that other people exist.. that day is coming fast.. I'm holding on, digging my heals in! 

His little mini hands are growing up and turning into boy hands instead of baby hands.. I'm not ready yet! One day I'll come home from work, and the toys will not be on the living room floor.. he will have lost interest in toys and moved onto hobbies by himself.  

One day, it will be the last time he asks to snuggle and just let me hold him, that last time he runs and jumps into my arms!  The Sunday morning when he comes down and climbs on my lap to snuggle in.. there will be a last time! The nights that he sleeps on my chair all night.. will end.. and it will probably feel empty in that bedroom that night. 

All this to say, I'm looking at him, almost 5 years old and I'm begging myself to slow down and see him! To hold him and soak up every minute. It wasn't that long ago that my 16 year old, was 'almost 5' !