“One two three four five six seven eight nine ten!” my three year old counted, touching the pictures in the book as he went.

I blinked. Since when can he count? Did this just happen?

One week he couldn’t count; the next he could. It was so fast and yet so slow, the three short years of his life leading up to that ability. And then the next and the next and the next.

There’s a common phrase in parenting: “The days are long, but the years are short.” Back when my kids were born, I thought I knew what that meant. I thought I agreed. After all, taking care of a day-to-day newborn is tedious. But it will seem so short so soon, right? Best to enjoy every moment while it lasts, like the old ladies warn you to.

So I’d watch my babies intently, eager to capture every milestone with my mind and camera. But instead of reveling in the progress, it dragged. I despaired there was something wrong with me, wanting things to hurry up already but also dreading the day when they would.

Yet as my children have gotten older, my worries have proven false.

The days are still long, drawn out in every morning I hug them and every evening I tuck them in.

They’re still long in the struggles, the hours spent comforting children to sleep, the breathing through meltdowns, the coaxing them to the dinner table, the puzzling over befuddling behavior.

But they’re long in the good times too, stretching the joy out like lazy summer afternoons. Watching them plunge down playground slides, cheer in winning a board game, examine a bright leaf, sigh over a sunrise, hug each other in love. The “I love yous.” They’re so much emotion, so much feeling packed into these brief moments.

And the days are long in how seemingly miraculous changes happen in the gaps. The growth happens in the in-between moments, away from prying parental eyes. Seemingly overnight, the child’s ankles stick out of their pajama pants, their hands can reach the sink without a boost, their brain can read the words in a book. These changes give weight to a single week that years of my life haven’t had. I did plenty of work this week, but did I do anything as fundamental as learn to count?

Sometimes, the days in parenting can blend together, a blur of caretaking. But if we can gather our breath to stop and watch our children, time will slow down for us. It will reveal the beauty in the changes, like a flip-book that you move through one page at a time. What’s ordinary to us will become a small miracle – like counting to 10.

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