All Grown Up

The last few days, I have really had something on my mind. It all started on Friday when we had a church meeting for stake conference. Jackson was all wound up and we ended up taking him out to the foyer with all of the other "crazy" kids. Jackson has always been a pretty social little boy. There were two other boys, around two and three, who were out there playing with eachother and driving their little cars. Jackson immediately wanted to be part of their little gang. He crawled right over to them and tried to play with them. He even finangled a way for one of the dads to let him play with another car. He sat on the floor with them and stood up by the little table they were playing by and just laughed. I'm pretty sure he's convinced that he is a big kid now. He loves being mobile and being able to get into anything, and everything, he wants to. I have been asking myself where my little baby has gone. When did he go from this....

and this...

To this?

And thinking about this got me wondering about other things. I realized that 11 month olds aren't the only ones with this problem. Why are we all so focused on being "grown up"? It seems like way too often that we are all saying, I can't wait until I'm done with college, I can't wait until I'm married and don't have to play the dating game anymore, I'll be happy when I have a baby, I really just want to have a house, or my life will finally be complete when I find my "real job".

I've realized that living only for tomorrow makes us miss a lot of today. There's a quote from Thomas S. Monson that says:

If we live only for tomorrow, we’ll have a lot of empty yesterdays today.

It's sad how true this is. I have realized this as I have watched my little boy grow from a newborn who relied on me for everything to a little boy who is almost a year old and wants to do everything himself. I have committed myself to take the time TODAY to enjoy life's little pleasures. Tomorrow will come with it's own set of joys and trials. It's today that we need to take the time to enjoy. Otherwise we might miss moments like this....

and this.....

and this.....
I've learned over the last year as our family has had some hard experiences that you never know when it will be too late to enjoy something or more importantly someone. That's why I've decided to stop living for tomorrow and to start living and loving today.

Isn't life a wonderful thing when you take the time to actually pay attention to it?