It's a zoo

The Chicago Marathon was last Sunday and man, did it take me back. It was only a year ago that I ran that same race while eight weeks pregnant. Wait. What the what? How has it been only been a year? Time acts like all kinds of crazy when you stop and really think about it.

There I was, with a baby on my lap, watching the last bit of the race as it streamed live on the computer while only twelve months earlier he was barely a piece of creation inside me and I was running the dang thing. I know it's a big cliché and all, but I had my first wow-it-really-does-go-by-in-a-flash moment. 

 
I can't help but keep breaking the whole thing down in my head. It's such a mind-bending contrast: first he was two pink lines on a stick; then he is this blond velvety-head on which I rest my chin as we watch the lead woman drop a 5:10 for her third-to-last mile. I don't think I could run one 5:10 mile right now - even if I had spikes and a rabbit to pace me through it. I roll my eyes and laugh at how my mind instinctively goes to running. and splits. and marathons. I'm sitting in my pajamas, with no hope of stringing together 26 consecutive miles and I'm thinking about marathon pace with A BABY ON MY LAP. And he's not even a baby so much any more. He's SITTING on my lap. The bobble head is gone, replaced by a strong neck and supported by a straight back. It's all just moving too fast.

Ugh, I know. New parent. Time flies. Yadda, yadda. Before I know it he'll be 5 years old and boarding the school bus. Then I'll blink again and he'll be off to college. And all this when he's just 4.5 months old. Right. So I picked my big baby up, raising him over my head -  which made him squeal with laughter, revealing that gummy smile of his - and it was a relief: he doesn't even have teeth yet. Then we played with his zoo toys the rest of the morning. Because whales that sing “twinkle twinkle” and lions that rattle are exactly what these real moments call for.