This little piggie

New parents often have a weird obession with their newborn's toes. At some point in those early hours of life, there's a tally taken - do we have 10? Yes we have 10. Well all right then! (I have no idea what we'd do if we ever counted more or less.)

Then there are the non-parental adults in a child's world that seem to have a baby foot thing going. A friend of mine was giddy waiting for the day she could get peek at the little baby toes of both my kids. So tiny to the point you questioned their reality. Could a person be THAT small?

I must confess to finding the small feet in my house a bit of an intrigue. They're invovled in some pretty big 'firsts', if nothing else - those often well documented first steps. The 'biggie' as notable milestones go. And yet, they are so darn small. So flat and so fat. Yup, we're talking puffy little toddler feet.

A few weekends ago when the weather denied it ought to celebrate winter and we basked in the warm sun on the beach Megan gave up her insistance that beach sand on naked toes was unacceptable. She plugged her foot deep into cool, damp piles of sand. She ran across the uneven ground sending clumps of sand about knee high (to her) out behind her to illustrate the nature of speed. She sat and wiggled those toes in the fine grains.

And of course I took pictures.

I sat looking at this particular one for a while. It seemed a little odd at the time to take it - but that never stopped me from doing so before. My husband laughed a little when he saw it. Megan finds it terribly amusing. Yet it illustrates something to me in a way other photos can not.

In our hallway there is a picture frame with a black and white photo of Megan merely days old. Below her photo is a black stamped footprint next to her name and details of her birth stats. (We have an indentical frame for Logan on the opposite wall.) When we stamped her foot that day, it seemed so big - She seemed to have such 'huge' fit as newborns go. Yet now that print seems so tiny it's surreal. So hard to believe my bundle of energy was every that little bundle of baby.

And yet this photo. That foot. Still so small.

Megan is not quite two and half years old. She's got so much life ahead of her and at the same time, so much change already behind her. She's done some major growing recently - not just in size. We've come to know her personality and have begun to understand how to make adjustments in our behaviors to have some success with hers.

And then there's her brother. When he's on his own or with her seems so big. When he's with "big" kids though, he still so small. He's wise beyond his years. He's still such a little kid at the same time.

In the next few weeks we're going to sit with his teacher at the preschool and we're going to talk about his progress this year - and the antipation of next year. The big "K."

He's excited. He can't wait ride a school bus and hit Kindergarten!

Me, I'm a bit in a daze over it. I look at that tiny foot print in my hallway. I look at the photos of his first steps - the big pride-filled smile on his little 10 month old face. I look at the mix of joy and nervous on his face his first day of preschool last year. I look at his foot today - so much bigger and yet still quite small in a way. This same foot that's going to walk him up the steps of that big yellow vehicle and then into those big brown doors of elementary school. I can imagine the years ahead as that same, albeit much larger foot, walks him down an aisle with a cap and gown - so many years away and yet not so many.

Those little feet taking them so very far.