Time Flies

Late last winter, I got into a conversation with a woman at the grocery store to pass the time in a slow moving line. She was pregnant with her first child, starting to feel uncomfortable, and looking forward to becoming a mom.

I saw her again the other day and paused to say hi and admire her baby. When I asked how old he is, she gazed at him and said, "He's two months old already. I can barely believe it."

I looked at my own babies, two and a half and almost five years, and thought the same thing.

Monday is Johnny's last day of school.

In a few months, I'll be turning 31, which freaks me out because I still haven't come to terms with 30 yet.

In three months, Johnny will turn 5, and a couple of weeks after that, he'll start his last year of preschool.

This time next year, we will have decided where to send him for kindergarten.

In 5 months, Maureen will be turning 3. She'll be in preschool in the fall too. This will be the last fall when I have both kids at home with me during the day. In three short years, they'll both be in school full time. It's too weird to contemplate right now, but it's coming and it's coming quickly.

Some days at home with little kids seem endless and when I'm changing yet another diaper or singing the Alphabet Song for what seems like the 50 millionth time, I think about what things will be like when they are older.

Other times, I notice how long Johnny's legs seem or how Maureen's face is losing it's roundness and wonder where my babies went. It's those times that remind me that while some days are tedious in their predictability, the time that children are actually children is so fleeting. If you don't pay attention, those long nights with a sleepless infant will quickly morph into a day in which you stand chatting with a stranger and looking at your children and asking yourself exactly where the time went.

I wanted to tell that new mother to pay attention to every detail. I wanted to tell her that yes, it sucks to be puked on and it's exhausting getting up five times in the middle of the night to breastfeed, but before she knows it, that two month old baby will be too heavy to pick up and his legs will be too long to fit in her lap anymore and he'll want to pour his own milk and make his own waffle and not hold her hand to cross the street. And she'll do what I do; look at him and think, "I can barely believe it."

On an unrelated note, Maureen is having her eye surgery tomorrow. Please keep her in your thoughts for an uneventful surgery and speedy recovery!