babies turning into toddlers

i used to work at a daycare center. it was everything you could want for a little one - a fun, nurturing place filled with people who knew about kids, loved kids and were integral parts of helping those little beings become little people.

my sister's twins are finishing their first year there and she just sent me a video of them partaking in one of the annual traditions: move-up day.  move-up day is when a child transitions from one room into the next (the center is divided into three age groups: babies; toddlers; big kids). as part of that moving up ceremony, the babies take their cubby bin out of the baby-room-cubby in the baby room and carry it over to the toddler room to put it in a toddler cubby.

i always thought it was a sweet, sort of funny tradition. like we, the grownups, were imposing this meaning that they could not grasp on a particular moment in time. but i would say the same is true for many of these mile-marking ceremonies throughout our lives. we don't always recognize their importance when we are the ones moving through them. (i remember being bored at my high school graduation and being moved to tears at my little brother's).

the video my sister sent me, also made me cry. i think in part because i miss that place and the people in it, and because i am missing these milestones in those babies' lives, but mostly because i think, as my dad has said many times before, those two babies are a miracle. and i am in total awe of them.