In the morning, I will be the mother of a ten year old. Double Digits. A one and a zero standing side by side and I just keep thinking where in the sam hell did the time go??? A while back, I read a blog post that was flying around the internet. I was looking over my shoulder while reading it. I could tell my face was getting warm and red...from embarrassment. Countless friends were sharing it on Facebook and laughing and being, all, "Oh yeah, what do those old ladies in the check out line know?" The comments, many of them cheering on the writer, telling her that she was brilliant and that they were words they could have written themselves. I skimmed through the pages of comments, searching and searching for someone who shared my opinion. There had to be at least one, right? I found some, but we were grossly out numbered.
I had received those words that they were snickering about from my own dear cousin - and I had cherished them. I took them to heart and I shared them with other new moms. Now, I wondered if the moms who I'd shared them with were the ones who were now LOL'ing at this blog. I felt so silly, reading those words. New moms were not particularly receptive to all that, "Cherish every moment." mumbo-jumbo. I get it to an extent. Maybe the timing of the words isn't always right. I mean, if little Johnny is hurling things from the carriage while you're shopping sleep deprived or you've got some dried up something or other on your shoulder....well, then, maybe it might not be the best time to tell a new mom to "cherish these moments because it goes by so fast." It's just that those old ladies only see your sweet baby. Their life experience sees past all of the chaos swirling around you in that current moment and they want to share that moment with you; to have a moment in time.
Right now, I might not be the mom of a child who is packing up and moving off to college.
I might not be the mom of a child who is preparing to walk down the aisle.
I might not be the mom of a child who is enlisting to serve our country...Although, I did glimpse that future once at the grocery store. It was a hot summer day. Both of my sons were decked out in their camo shirts & shorts, wearing their camelbacks full of water - looking quite ready for something, when the woman who was in front of me in line looked at them with that knowing smile. She told me that her son was in Ranger Training in Hawaii. I looked at my boys and then to the picture she had proudly pulled out of her wallet of her son's graduation from basic training.
I choked up.
I knew that she looked at my boys and thought, "It goes by in a blink of an eye." She didn't say it. She didn't have to. Those words hung in the air regardless of whether or not they were uttered. Mothers who have seen their children grow up before their eyes, know. They look at those little kids in the check out line with their chubby fingers, missing teeth, skinned knees and they long for those days. If they could build a time machine, it wouldn't be to go meet some crusty old queen or see the Pyramids in their heyday, it would be to spend just one more day with those chubby fingers and to kiss a boo boo all better.
I know that motherhood is not all pretty and fun and like the pictures in a magazine. { Although, I try damn hard to edit my photos & pair them with a clever status on Facebook so that it seems that way } Motherhood ~ It all starts with sleepless nights and smelly diapers; endless messy days filled with temper tantrums. There are tears and toys not put away. Stacks of school papers that you think you'll never see the bottom of. Yeah, all that crap, you don't think that you'll miss it or that you should have cherished it, but some day - and I'd put money on it, you will long for a day that you stayed in your jammies and never made it into the shower because you had been up all night with your baby. Snuggling and soothing and smelling that new baby smell; from the topside preferably. You'll miss all of those papers colored outside the lines, with at least one letter in their name made backwards. That backwards letter that worried you and had you calling the teacher to make sure your little guy or girl was on track. I'm telling ya, you're not gonna be laughing in a few years when you see your baby climb aboard the big yellow school bus or when your son walks off into the woods to go hunting with his dad. { I know I didn't } Or when you drop your daughter off at her first school dance looking like a young lady. You're gonna cry and you're gonna wonder where the time went?
Seriously, look at these pictures...I didn't age, but my son grew to my size, so it must have been in the blink of an eye!
Ok, clearly, I did age some. I don't look like I'm 15 anymore...which isn't always a bad thing. But it felt like it happened "in the blink of an eye".
No comments:
Post a Comment