I can’t imagine a more dramatic timelapse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There she was with her dark newborn hair–yet to be lost to the ravages of moving her head from side-to-side on the ground. Here she is now, with her dark blonde hair–long enough to sit in two braids hanging down from her head.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There she was with those tiny hands–tiny everything!–unable to even put herself to sleep and unable to tell us what was wrong. Here she is now–more than willing to share her opinions and overflowing with questions and ideas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When she was a baby, I looked forward to coming home from work so that I could simply see her. Now I come home to interact. I hear about her day and she asks about mine. We read stories, we play games and we make things out of Play-Doh. We sing songs, we watch movies, we have dance parties and conversations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All the things that seemed a million years away as I endlessly rocked a sleepless infant in a rocking chair were actually just three<\/em> years away–and now they’re here. And when I look at it that way, every future stage is really just a few years away–and if these three felt like a blur, the next three will feel like a flash, and the next 30 will feel like an instant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I often lament my inability to blog more. The great irony is that I’m often too busy being<\/em> a dad in my free time to write<\/em> about my experience of being a dad in my free time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Three years into fatherhood, if I had one wish for myself and advice for others, it would be to find a more lasting blend of patience, gratitude and awareness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I want to be patient with my children and savor their limitations. Today’s limitations are tomorrow’s skills–whether that’s a frustrating inability to sleep or a really cute speech impediment when trying to pronounce the letter L. Either way, it’s something that the march of time will most likely take care of, and it’s one of the memorable trappings of the current moment of which you should be aware and for which you should be grateful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yes, I realize that it is all too easy to be aware of the difficult limitations and not so easy to be grateful for them. But I want the hard memories, too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n