Nostalgia

Do you ever catch yourself looking around your house and something catches your eye and you think... I want to remember this forever.  That's what this picture means to me. It seems at face value that it's just a mess in the corner, but I see the boy that this mess belongs to.

My son, Ian, is 11 years old, and he has been playing baseball since he was 3.  He has grown up devoting his Spring, Summer, and sometimes Fall to practices and games for a sport he loves.  The fact is that it's not just him that devotes time to it but his entire family.  Our summers are pretty much filled with practices and ball games and over time, as much as we feel like we'd really rather be doing something else out of sheer exhaustion, the truth is that we love it just as much as he does.

I'm super sentimental when it comes to my kids as it is, but knowing that my son is a year and a half away from being a teenager causes me to hold tighter to him. I know that once he's a teenager those years are going to fly by faster than the 11 we've already had with him. So when I see this mess in the corner, I get to remember him as a little boy that doesn't think about much outside of baseball, football, and video games.

One day my boy is going to set his sights on other things and I know I'll be wishing for the days spent on the dusty baseball fields and the 100 degree temps. So, for now, I'm not going to fuss about the mess he left in the middle of the floor. I'm going to savor the moment.