Too Fast

It's amazing how quickly they grow. They enter our lives little and helpless, innocent and unaltered by the things of this world. They leave their footprints on our hearts and memories that go with them. They are unaware of just how quickly our hearts melt upon their first look into our eyes or the smile that spreads across their face. Their giggles and coos draw us in more and more, and before we know it, our hearts have been stolen by these little bundles of joy. Each day brings along a new reason to feel blessed.
The love continues to only grow stronger and stronger, and it's hard to remember your life before the joy they introduced. Despite the late nights or short naps, the incessant cries for hours, and the sheer exhaustion, they are seen as perfect. They grow so quickly before our eyes, and we tend to not even realize it until one day when it hits us.
I speak from the position of never having my own children, but I love and adore each child I've taken care of as if they are my own, and I tend to experience many of the same emotions and the overwhelming astonishment that parents go through. I realized today that my Little Man isn't so little anymore. In the blink of an eye he went from barely holding his head up to rolling to crawling and now walking. He took four steps by himself-totally unprompted. He no longer has that baby face, and his personality (and temper) are very well-known. He is capable of carrying on a babbling conversation with anyone who will listen, and he thoroughly enjoys making his presence known. No longer does he require me to entertain him throughout the day. He is perfectly capable of playing with his trucks (he made a "vroom" sound today :-) ), and he fully enjoys tormenting his sister every chance he gets.
It's bad enough when you realize that one child is growing up right before your eyes, but to have two of them surpassing milestones at what seems like morph speed is quite unbearable. Miss Magee is no longer that shy, quiet, untalkative little girl. She is one of the most energetic, inquisitive, spunky, full of life little girls I know. She embraces every moment of life as a learning experience. Her features are no longer that of a baby or toddler, but a little girl. Even now, as I lay here typing, she is on her computer next to me pretending to type away. She is truly two going on seventeen. She loves to dress up and be a princess and have her hair done. She makes me smile and remember how fun life is on more than one occasion a day. She went from refusing to sit on your lap to asking for cuddles.
I realized today that these two are growing up so quickly (major understatement). They aren't even mine, and yet I can't help but feel amazed at how amazing they are. It saddens me to realize that things we did last week might not be done again simply because they will be capable of doing it a different way. I will hold onto the "us" moments like reading with Miss Magee before bed or cradling Little Man right before I lay him down, the occasional moments when Miss Magee reaches up and grabs hold of my finger as we walk in the house or when Little Man barrels toward me at full speed just to lay his head in my  lap for a little lovin'.
I guess, in a way, I could tie this post in with my previous one. These moments that slip by so easily through the day are the ones that I will never get back. Miss Magee may not need me to help her with her shoes and socks tomorrow, and soon Little Man will not need me to hold his hands while he walks across the room. I don't know how long those moments will last, but what I do know is that I am desperately trying to commit every little moment to memory.
If it's this bad now, I hate to think of how hard it will be when I actually have my own kids...