A colleague once said that things happen gradually, then suddenly. He was referring to events of the workplace – creating strategy, building trust, losing trust, moving on. Still, as I look at the events of the past seven months, all I can think is “gradually, then suddenly.”
- Gradually, baby looked around the world, not recognizing anything she saw. Suddenly, she stares out the window at far off places, mesmerized by trains, cars and people going by and smiles when she sees someone she knows
- Gradually, she learned to sleep, then sleep in a crib, then sleep at naptimes. Suddenly, we have a daily routine.
- Gradually, and painfully, she learned how to feed. Suddenly, she’s lunging, mouth wide open, at the spoon and bobbing her head toward the bowl.
- Gradually, we learned how to support her head as it wobbled around, and suddenly she’s sitting up and joining us at the dinner table in her booster seat.
- Gradually, I stopped eating at McDonald’s so much. Suddenly, my pants started to zip up again.
- Gradually, we stopped rocking her to sleep, and suddenly, I had vast amounts of time to brush my teeth, shower, and empty the dishwasher.
- Gradually, she moved through the sizes of her clothes. Suddenly, things that I thought would never fit have already come and gone.
- Gradually, I let go of some of the control and expectations of this journey. Suddenly, I found myself enjoying the days more and finding out how short they truly are.
The “suddenly”s seem to be coming more rapidly these days. The smiles, the playing, the trying to move around, the focusing. When I look back, (and what I remember), I know it all happened gradually, over those hundred of thousands of minutes.
And the current things – she still isn’t sleeping all night, we are still a little ways from sippy cups and finger foods, and crawling hasn’t seems interesting to her – all seem light years away. But I know that suddenly all of these things will happen and I’ll wonder how it all happened so gradually.