I realize this sounds ridiculous, but sometimes it still amazes me that Jacob is our child and will be, like, forever.  Sometimes I feel like a little kid before God, but instead of a puppy in my arms, I have a child, and I’m asking, “You mean we get to keep him?”

Last week I was talking with my parents about plans for next summer, and I realized next August Jacob will be almost two!  He’ll be running around, telling us stuff, throwing food (gah!  I hope not!), having opinions, making jokes—who knows?  Ruling the world, perhaps?

It’s been said myriad times before, but it bears repeating:  it is incredible how much a person changes in the first year of his life.  To illustrate this phenomenon, check out these photos of Jacob the day he was born, at one month old, then two months old, and so on.

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Amazing, right?  I look back on the photos of him at three and four months and think, what a little chub!  And check out that receding hairline—thank goodness it came back in!

Next year so much more will have changed, in ways I can’t even fathom yet.  People keep saying, “Before you know it, he’ll be running all over the place.”  That’s true. And before I know it, he’ll be going to school, reading books (not eating them or rearranging their pieces), playing games, making his own breakfast, helping me clean up the kitchen, taking out the garbage . . . oops, I’m getting a bit carried away.

Seriously, though.  I remember one of my friends, who has a child who is older than Jacob, saying at one point, “Wow.  I don’t have a baby anymore; I have a toddler.”  Soon that’s going to be me.  Then a toddler will become a kindergartener, and then a middle schooler, a teenager, a college student, a twenty-something, and before you know it, perhaps he’ll have kids of his own.

All this “before you know it” stuff is not meant to be nostalgic or pining in any way.  The moral of the story is that parenthood—and really, life in general—continues to blow my mind.  I’m in the midst of a time when my friends are making their dreams come true—becoming doctors, lawyers, editors (!)—and that’s a kind of coming of age in itself.  And then here I have this little man, who is just on the brink of learning to walk, and I can’t help but see so many parallels between that stage of life and this one.

Physically, emotionally, and mentally, there is much to be done in that first year, but even in mid- to late-twenties, there is always more growth to be had, more change to embrace.  Before you know it, life can take you to amazing, incredible, beyond-your-wildest-dreams places.  And at any stage in life, what a blessing that is.