I was looking through old pictures of my son when I realized something that broke my heart a little.

I miss him.

Which sounds ridiculous, considering he’s still here.

He’s growing, learning, laughing, and becoming more of himself every single day.

But the baby in those photographs?

I’ll never meet that version of him again.

And I don’t think I fully understood that until now.

I look at those pictures and see moments I didn’t realize were slipping away. Ordinary days that have somehow become memories I would give anything to experience again.

Sometimes I wonder what it would be like if my fiancé and I could take everything we know about parenting today and start over with our son at three months old.

Just one more chance to experience those early days with the wisdom we have now.

Not because we didn’t love him enough.

Not because we did everything wrong.

But because we were learning how to be parents while he was learning how to exist in the world.

We were all experiencing life together for the very first time.

And there’s something heartbreaking about realizing that by the time you truly understand a season of your life, it’s already over.

I think about the days that felt so ordinary back then.

The moments I assumed I would remember forever.

The little things that seemed insignificant because I didn’t know they would eventually become the things I missed most.

I wonder how many beautiful moments I experienced without fully realizing how beautiful they were.

How many times was I looking forward to tomorrow without realizing that someday, I would be wishing for yesterday?

Nobody tells you that motherhood means falling in love with someone who is constantly becoming someone new.

And with every new version of your child, you gain something beautiful.

But you quietly lose something, too.

The baby becomes a toddler.

The toddler becomes a little boy.

And somewhere along the way, the child you remember holding becomes someone you can only visit through photographs.

It isn’t that you love who they’re becoming any less.

It’s that you wish you could keep every version of them.

Sometimes I wish I could just step inside one of those pictures.

Not to change anything.

Just to be there again.

To see his little face exactly as it was.

To hold him knowing what I know now.

To experience one ordinary day without wondering when it would end.

But that’s not how life works, is it?

Time doesn’t care how much we love something.

It keeps moving.

And the hardest part is realizing that I’m still doing it.

I’m still living through moments that I don’t fully understand the value of yet.

One day, I’ll probably look back at pictures of my son at this very age and feel this same ache all over again.

I’ll miss the way he sounds now.

The things that make him laugh.

The little person he is today.

And I’ll probably wish I could come back to October 2026, just to experience one more ordinary afternoon with him.

That’s when it occurred to me.

I’m already living in a memory I’ll someday wish I could return to.

Maybe that’s what reminiscing really teaches us.

Not that the past was better.

Not that we should spend our lives wishing we could go backward.

But that the present deserves the same tenderness we give our memories.

Because someday, the little boy standing in front of me will exist in photographs just like the baby I miss today.

And I don’t want to become so consumed with missing who he used to be that I forget to appreciate who he is.

I can’t go back and meet my three month old son again.

But I can be here for the little boy he is right now.

And maybe, years from now, when I’m looking through these pictures with tears in my eyes, I’ll find comfort in knowing that this time, I understood.

I knew I was living through something I would someday miss.

With Love, Sheema