I don’t think that people are usually surprised when you say you learned something from a book, but you may receive more questioning glances if you say you learned it from a book meant for kids. I, however, am proud to share with you what I learned from a children’s book.

The book is Someday by Alison McGhee & Peter H. Reynolds. I saw this book in Barnes & Noble, picked it up, got to the fourth page, and started tearing up. I quickly slammed it shut, paid for it and left. I finished reading it at home where I could really let the tears flow.

The writing is so simple, yet so profound. It chronicles a mother’s thoughts to her baby, who becomes a child, then an adult, and then a mother to children of her own. This book contains 232 words of pure, raw emotion.

Sometimes it is so hard to drag yourself out of bed for the 5th time to soothe your crying baby, or change a diaper.

Sometimes it is downright annoying to be followed around by a toddler saying “hold you, hold you” when you just want to finish the few chores you have left, or make a cup of coffee, or finish a task for work.

Sometimes it’s hard to let those dishes sit in the sink or the laundry lay in the basket.

But sometimes that is exactly what you have to do. They won’t be small forever.

One day, that little face who looks up at you with happiness after they have on a new, clean diaper will turn around, grab a pair of “big kid” underwear and say, “no help, mama…me do it!”

One day, the small voice saying “hold you” will suddenly now be saying, “no mama, get down! I walk!”

When your baby goes to school and something makes them sad, you will want to scoop them up and hold them forever, just like you used to complain about having to do. But now they are in high school and that’s not cool anymore.

Or when they are 1000 miles away in college and they have their heart broken, you will long for the moments that you were woken up 5 times in the middle of the night, yet now there is just an empty room down the hall while your child, now an adult, cries alone in a dorm, hoping no one will know.

Someday you will wish that you could just come back to today. So don’t wish away these seemingly annoying moments, because they will be gone in the blink of an eye.

Cherish each moment, whether happy or sad, exhilarating or excruciating, because those are the very things that make memories.

Authored by: Kathleen Rucka