No Undo's, Backspace's, or Do Over's

How many times in a day do you use that backspace key?  I use it a lot.  I've probably used it no less than 30 times in typing things blog so far (a testament to my less-than-perfect typing, and my still-working-it-out-ness as I write). (*Update* Ironically, my husband just read the blog and pointed out to me that I typed the word "things" in the previous sentence where I meant to type the word "this."  It seems I should have used my backspace key even more than I did.)  That wonderful little key can permanently remove something from ever having happened. I misspelled "that" as "taht" in the first sentence, but you never would have known, except taht (there I did it again, adn I'll be honest about my inability to type simple words correctly by leaving it...) I told you just now.  

I could have typed, "You're a stinky face," and then deleted it, and you would never have known, because the backspace key makes it feel like it never happened.  The Undo key is almost as glorious, and maybe even more delightful than the backspace key.  If I mess up editing a picture so that the colors make my daughter look like a green alien, I just hit "undo" and viola!  Lily is back to her perfectly-colored self!

But life doesn't have undo buttons, backspace keys, or the do over option.  We get each day only once.  We get each hour to spend just a single time.  And we get each minute in sequence with no opportunity to mix up or relive any of them.  

Liliana Jo celebrated 6 months of life yesterday, and as I spent the day at home with her, I was constantly reminded that she only gets to turn 6 months old once.  That 2 hour nap she took yesterday afternoon - I never get that again.  (I mean, I may, literally, never get a 2 hour nap out of her in the afternoon again because she's generally a 45-minute napper.  But I also mean, that I will never get those 2 hours to relive.)

By my calculations, I have approximately 6,905 days, or 165,720 hours, or 9,943200 minutes, or 596,592,000 seconds to spend with my baby before she goes off to college.  Looking at all those seconds now may seem like a lot of seconds, but they pass just *blink* that fast.   

Each one matters to me.  I don't want to lose sight of that.  Ever.  She is a gift, Chase is a gift, life is a gift and I don't get another shot at it.  I want to live it well, one second at a time. 

...596,592,847 seconds to go...

Happy 6 months Lily!