FPC 13: Inches and Milestones

MMM Note: Over the past two weeks, my wonderful guest bloggers have been imparting wisdom and smiles. I appreciate their willingness and ability to share their thoughts regarding families, and the Family Proclamation.  I hope you loyal readers have enjoyed it, too.

What have I been doing the past two weeks? Nothing. Other than the one post last Wednesday, I’ve written nary a word. I have managed to monitor the comment section to keep out the riff-raff, and had an occasional tete-a-tete on Facebook, but that’s about it. And life did go on…

But I’m back. The Proclamation Celebration is winding up tomorrow, and I decided that I am going to hog the last two spots. I invited myself to do it, and I eventually accepted my invitation. So, today and tomorrow, the FPC guest blogger will be me. It’s nice to be back.

Once in a while I get extra-motivated. It doesn’t happen often, but sometimes I kick into “turbo mode.” Especially when it is something that I want to get over with as quickly as possible. (Yard work, chores, Christmas shopping, etc.)

One Saturday, I was in turbo mode.  My EC had purchased a “Magic Eraser” cleaning pad from Mr. Clean. If you haven’t tried one, you should know that it is, indeed, magic.  Based on the color, I’m guessing it is good magic, rather than black magic. Either way, it works well.

I was conducting a search-and-destroy mission on all the smudges and fingerprints on the walls, doors and doorjambs in the house. (Let me interject with a reminder that I have four sons.) I was a scrubbing machine – where I went, cleanliness followed.

I entered the kitchen and started scrubbing the pantry door and the doorjamb. The youngest FOML interrupted me.

“Dad, stop!”
I stopped.
“What’s wrong.”
“Don’t wash that.”
“Wash what?”
“That!” He pointed at the doorjamb.
“Why not?”
“Look closer.”

I stopped and looked closer, and was aghast to see that I had just wiped away the last five years of the family growth chart. Anytime someone wanted to see if they had grown taller, that doorjamb is where we marked it. Usually in pencil, sometimes in ink. That infernal Magic Eraser did a great job on both.

This was bad. My son wasn’t as worried, and went to get a pencil. As best we could, we returned the lines by using the tiny imprints that were left behind. It wasn’t perfect, but it was enough. No, I never bothered my EC with such a stupid small thing – and she didn’t know until I was thinking about writing this.

It took a mere swipe to wipe away the details of my children’s growth, but the imprints remained. It is not much different with the real details of my children’s lives – they fade so quickly – and it makes me sad.

We have five kids, and we have been parents for a long time. It has been 24 years since I could cradle my little girl in my arms and sing her to sleep. 21 years since FOML2’s first steps. Dance recitals, soccer games, baptisms, vacations – life with kids is a perpetual stream of experiences – and we make a mark on the wall of our memory for as many as we can.

But time serves as the unlitmate Magic Eraser. One day we are laughing at our child’s inability to say the word “breakfast,” now we sit around an empty table trying to remember which kid it was. The details begin to slip away. But the imprints remain – not on the wall, but in our children themselves. Eventually they will grow up, and those imprints will have helped them become what they have become. To some of you, this might seem like forever away. But it isn’t. Before you know it, you will be trying to remember which baby threw up on the laptop keyboard, and which kid collected Pokemon cards – and you will disagree.

Keep track of those moments. I got my first digital camera in 1999. What a blessing this technology has turned out to be. We take far more pictures digitally than we ever did with film. We also don’t find ourselves stocking them away in shoeboxes, awaiting the day that they would magically transform themselves into acid-free, die-cut scrapbooks.

Now we have Instagram, Tumblr, blogs, Facebook, and many other ways to share photos.  My favorite?  My wife’s computer in the kitchen. She has a running slideshow of her photo library as the screen saver. Sometimes I find myself standing there for half-an-hour, entranced as photographic evidence of our lives fill the screen. A family photo album, or a family blog is family history – don’t let anyone tell you any differently.

My EC keeps a family blog and also separate blogs for our missionaries.  For my son’s 22 birthday, she gifted him a 200 page blog book, complete with all his letters home, and photos. It was a thing of beauty. I am sooo envious.  But, to her credit, on my birthday, she gifted me a blog book of the year 2009 – a year in the life of our family. (Three more until she’s caught up.) It was truly a labor of love, and family history. Ad if you have seen the TV show Revolution, the books make much more sense.

We try not to get too obsessed about preserving every single memory – it is impossible and/or annoying. One snarky friend reminded us of this futility with a gift – it was a small ceramic bottle with a cork in the top. Painted on the side were the words, “Baby’s First Fart.”  Need I say more?

There is something fascinating about watching your babies become adults – Independent, smart, & capable. We hope we have done what God expects us to do as parents. We hope we have helped the important things in life to imprint on their hearts and souls. As they grow, we find joy as we see them become educated and successful, serve missions, marry, and be good, righteous people. Yet all possible earthly accomplishments pale in comparison to the singular hope that they carry a testimony of the Savior.

You think a baby’s first steps are exciting? Wait until you get to witness that same baby receive their temple endowment, and be sealed to an eternal companion. Always remembering that those milestones come from a lifetime of pencil marks.

Keep track of those pencil marks. Capture them, recognize them, cherish them. But know that great milestones also await.

PS:  If you don’t have your digital photos backed-up, go do it now, or I might have to slap you.