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time keeps on slippin'.....

When I was pregnant with my daughter, a cousin said to me - Savor your time with your kid. It goes so fast. One day they're in diapers, the next they're in high school. And you'll have no idea where that time went. She teared up a little as she said it. I shrugged it off as a new-parent-advice cliche. Time was a leisurely thing. Back then, at the relatively young age of 28, life was moseying along at a good pace. How could having a child make things speed up? It couldn't! I thanked my relative for her advice and chalked up the tears to her having a melodramatic midlife crisis.

But, oh how right she was. Becoming a parent leaves you with mental changes to go with the physical. Along with sagging boobs and stretch marks comes a fundamental change in how you view the passage of time. It won't happen right away. It will just sneak up on you. One day you'll be standing there, just watching your kid smear Spaghettio's all over the high chair and you'll look at his face and exclaim "When did he stop being a baby? He's...he's...a little boy now!" And you weep just a little because that infancy stage went by so fast and you feel like you didn't grab it hard enough to hold onto any of it. You find yourself looking at pictures of your son as an infant and then looking right at him and wondering when the hell that change took place, because you've been with him the whole time and you don't remember him..growing...like that. Time has sped up. You're on fast-forward from here on in.

And then they go to pre-school and the normal calendar that you've been setting your life by this whole time goes out the window. Your year now goes from September to August instead of January to December. He's in kindergarten. First grade. He can read, write, make friends on his own. His face has changed so much you can't believe that photo of the kid in the high chair with the spaghetti sauce all over his face is actually your son. Where did the curly hair go? The pudgy cheeks?

And then he's playing baseball, making his first Communion, wearing a tuxedo to your sister's wedding and damn, he looks like a little man. But that can't be, because just yesterday he was laying on the living room floor with his binky in his mouth, clutching his stuffed animal and watching Barney. What? That wasn't yesterday? You could swear it was....

And then your daughter starts middle school and your head is spinning because you could swear that it was just a year ago that she was playing the recorder in the third grade concert. Three years ago? No way.

They're having parties and you look at their little friends when they come in your door and you think to yourself, isn't that Suzie from her Daisy troop? She's wearing make up? That little girl is wearing eye shadow? And your daughter reminds you that they are in eighth grade now and they're not little kids any more.

And then you're done with the elementary school. You've got one in the middle school and one in high school and every time you drive past the elementary school, you feel wistful and weepy even though you hated that principal and the school itself because your precious time is bottled up in that building, years and years of your children growing up and you wonder if you didn't just hit a time warp and got bumped into the future because there is no way all that time has passed already.

And then your daughter is talking about learning to drive and colleges and boyfriends and your son has a hint of mustache on his upper lip and you can practically hear the roaring sound as time wooshes right past you. Suddenly you're in one of those cartoons where the calendar pages go flying to mark the passing of time. Woosh, woosh, woosh, there goes five years in the blink of an eye.

Of course, one day you sit down to really think about all this and you realize you're having a melodramatic mid life crisis. You're in your 40's now. Half your life is gone. And half of half of that life was spent watching your kids hit the fast forward button. What's left? Graduations, weddings, grandkids, retirement community. Birth, school, work, death.

Ok, so that's the morose, hardened way of looking at it. There is a lot to look forward to. But it's kind of like autumn - I wait for that season all year because it's my favorite. The cool weather, the beautiful colors, I just love fall. Yet I feel like even if I spend all day long staring at the foliage, it's not going to be enough, because no matter how long I stare, no matter how many pictures I take, that particular moment when the yellow leaf goes spiraling down into the pile of red leaves in a spectacular ballet of nature, that moment will gone. Forever.

In two days, my son will be 12 years old. Two weeks after that, my daughter will turn 15. My kids will never be 11 and 14 again. I'll never be 40 again. I just wish there was a way to hold onto time a little tighter, to slow it down just a bit, or to go back in time and really pay attention to my relative who gave me the well meaning lecture on the passing of time. But even if we do savor every single moment, they still pass us by. We can't make time stand still and I certainly wouldn't want to. I just wish it would go a bit slower.

So, in honor of the birthdays of my children, I made a vow to myself to not write about them here anymore, unless it's to remark on a particular achievement of theirs. When I started this blog, they were little kids. They're not that anymore, and it's not right for me to put on display all those goofy stories where anyone can find them, even if by accident. What's in the archives stays in the archives, but putting a story on the front page about my son wearing a dress is no longer an option. They gave me four years of blogging fodder, four years of things that are funny when you're eight, but embarrassing when you're twelve.

They were just little kids when I started this. A lot can happen in four years, and it happens with a woosh.

In the midst of my mid life crisis, I'd like to offer this piece of advice to those of you with small children:

Savor your time with your kid. It goes so fast. One day they're in diapers, the next they're in high school. And you'll have no idea where that time went.

Melodramatic, but true.

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» Life's Too Short from TexasBestGrok
Recently, Random's thoughts about his girl child's fourth birthday prompted me to muse about the passage of time. Michele Catalano recently posted some similar thoughts... [Read More]

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Comments

Oh Michelle, what a wonderful way to salute your memory of your kid's growing up.A very moving piece.

Mine are 4, 2 and 3 months, and even now, I feel the time swishing by. I was reading a discussion at resurrectionsong.com, and someone brought up the phrase "Be. Here. Now."

It's so hard to do, but the only possibility of really enjoying those times.

Great post, Michele. I look forward to a whole autumn full of great blogging.

I don't know how many times I've been typing the "first" comment, only to be beat out by a "quickie." ;-)

While my wife and I were dating, my mother related a story to her from my childhood. It seems that while I was being potty trained, I would often run outside naked, climb as high as I could on the swingset, and sing loudly "I just peed in the potty!" it was apparently the talk of the neighborhood.

Those stories that embarrass your kids now will be funny to them again one day.

Mine are 21, 18, and 11.

I tell new parents, "Don't blink."

And I'll miss watching your kids grow up, too. They seem to be doing a nice job of teaching you how to be an excellent grandma.

My sons are 9 & 2, and I completely agree with you on being reserved in your posts on your children.

I don't write much about my kids specifically, but rather collectively, and in a macro sense.

Parents have to view childrens lives collective as well. Sure, one day they're in diapers, then they're in a school play the next. But what makes the memories of the diapers so remarkable is looking back and seeing where they were, and where they are now.

I don't see the passage of time as a necessarily bad thing; I see it as a way to point out the remarkable events along the way, that will collectively emcompass the story of the child's life.

Thanks, Michele.
Tears filled my eyes as I read your first two paragraphs.
Brandon turned 2 two weeks ago, and it hit me last weekend that I no longer have a baby, or a toddler, he's a PRESCHOOLER. It goes by way too fast! I know what lies ahead, and I'm awaiting it and dreading it at the same time.

Thank you. From a daddy who knows he has it too damn good.

Mine are 2 and 4 and my oldest "baby" is taking balley, playing the piano and helping take care of her little brother. My youngest "baby" is starting to push me away when I try to help him because he wants to do things himself.

Being a parent is exhausting and exhilerating and bittersweet. I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world.

Bolie IV

Beautiful, beautiful.

My girls are 26 23 21 17 and with my youngest's graduation from high school this year it hits home again that it really marks both an ending and beginning for me. This fall, my husband and I will really be just a couple ... just us two living together with visits from the kids and grandkids. It will be a shift in my life.

But you know, no matter how old they get, and how your personal relationship may shift with your kids in that you will be talking and interacting with them more like a peer rather than a parent, there will be times you'll still be mom. When they call to ask just how you fix that chicken dinner they love or in frustration with their own kids to ask "mom, was I ever like this when I was their age?" or when they get hurt -- We spent the wee hours of yesterday morning in the ER.

I'm sure your kids won't disappear from your blog because they are obviously talented and achievements are on the horizon. I will enjoy hearing about DJ's progress with his guitar and when Natalie lands the lead role in a school play.

And then, sooner than you think, you will be looking at all the funny stories of your grandkids you can write about.

:-)

I posted some similar thoughts a couple of weeks ago. You really do blink and see 5 years go by.

cool - so that means if DJ wears a really funky dress, we'll know?

three kids 16, 12, and 10. Until your post, this bit of lyric (Rush, Time Stand Still) captured the feeling:

(Time stand still)
I'm not looking back
But I want to look around me now
(Time stand still)
See more of the people and the places that surround me now
Freeze this moment a little bit longer
Make each impression a little bit stronger
Freeze this motion a little bit longer
The innocence slips away
The innocence slips away...

Summer's going fast, nights growing colder
Children growing up, old friends growing older
Freeze this moment a little bit longer
Make each impression a little bit stronger
Experience slips away
Experience slips away...
The innocence slips away

My youngest will be 13 at the end of February and my oldest will be 16 in May. I am not ready for two teenagers. The incident that threw me for a loop was buying them bathing suits last summer. When did they become women?! And that bikini is WAY too small!

My daughter will soon be two. She's growing so fast! (It doesn't help that she's bigger than most 3 years olds). We're hoping for more and I can't wait.

One lesson I learned from my dad, who was a sales exec and traveled frequently (and was also a great dad)...you can't get the time back. I decided some time back that my career didn't mean much to me except as a means to support my family. If it ever gets in the way of my time with them, I'm going to need to make a change.

When you're 75, will you remember "closing the XYZ deal", or that first little league game, school play, or the day she took her first steps? No contest in my opinion.

If it ever gets in the way of my time with them, I'm going to need to make a change.

Ahh, there's the rub! How to make sure you balance them both.

If you ever figure it out, let me (all of us) know.

Just perfect, Michele. I was musing about his yesterday; I have an 8 year old son and a 5 year old daughter. Recently, he's started to call me "Dad" instead of "Daddy". It hit me all at once yesterday; "what happened to that little voice - 'Daddy?'"

When you're 75, will you remember "closing the XYZ deal", or that first little league game, school play, or the day she took her first steps? No contest in my opinion.

Dead on. My son's got a belt test today at karate class. Is there work stuff that needs to get done? Sure, but I'll be on the 5:56 instead of the 6:37 tonight. The work stuff'll get done; the belt test I need to be there for.

Do you have a kleenex?

JAB, our minds work alike (check the link in my comment above yours - my kids are 10, 8, and 5).

(Tevye)
Is this the little girl I carried?
Is this the little boy at play?

(Golde)
I don't remember growing older
When did they?

(Tevye)
When did she get to be a beauty?
When did he grow to be this tall?

(Golde)
Wasn't it yesterday
When they were small?

(Men)
Sunrise, sunset
Sunrise, sunset
Swiftly flow the days
Seedlings turn overnight to sunflowers
Blossoming even as we gaze

(Women)
Sunrise, sunset
Sunrise, sunset
Swiftly fly the years
One season following another
Laden with happiness and tears

Oh, great, now I have "If I were a Rich Man" stuck in my head!
Thanks Jim! (grin)

It depends, does the "XYZ deal" set me and my family up for life? If it puts the kids through college, gives them a nice start in life and gives us a nice retirement I think the kid will understand in the future why daddy missed something.

I'm callous that way though. Damn me for looking at the big picture.

Great post though Michele and so very true.

Sigh, it's so true, every single word of it.

Here's a wonderful poem on the subject (IMHO), written by Randall Jarrell.

THE LOST CHILDREN

Two little girls, one fair, one dark,
One alive, one dead, are running hand in hand
Through a sunny house. The two are dressed
In red and white gingham, with puffed sleeves and sashes.
They run away with me. . . But I am happy;
When I wake I feel no sadness, only delight.
That, somewhere, they still are.

It is strange
To carry inside you someone else's body;
To know it before it's born;
To see at last that it's a boy or a girl, and perfect;
To bathe it and dress it; to watch it
Nurse at your breast, till you almost know it
Better than you know yourself---better than it knows itself.
You own it as you made it.
You are the authority upon it.

But as the child learns
To take care of herself, you know her less.
Her accidents, adventures are her own,
You lose track of them. Still, you know more
About her than anyone except her.

Little by little the child in her dies.
You say, " I have lost a child, but gained a friend."
You feel youself gradually discarded.
She argues with you or ignores you
Or is kind to you. She who begged to follow you
Anywhere, just so long as it was you,
Finds follow the leader no more fun.
She makes few demands; you are grateful for the few.

The younger person who writes once a week
Is the authority upon herself.
She sits in my living room and shows her husband
My albums of her as a child. He enjoys them
And makes fun of them. I look too
And I realize that girl in the matching blue
Mother-and-daughter dress, the fair one carrying
The tin lunch box with the half-pint thermos bottle
Or training her pet duck to go down the slide
Is lost just as the dark one, who is dead, is lost.
And the hats that match, exists so uncannily
That, after I've seen its pictures for an hour,
I believe in it: the bandage coming loose
One has in the picutre of the other's birthday
The castles they are building, at the beach for asthma.

I look at them and all they old sure knowledge
Floods over me, when I put the album down
I keep saying inside: " I did know those children.
I braided those braids. I was driving the car
The day that she stepped in the can of grease
We were taking to the butcher for our ration points.
I know those children. I know all about them.
Who are they?"

I stare at her and try to see some sign
Of the child she was. I can’t believe there isn’t any.
I tell her foolishly, pointing at the picture,
That I keep wondering where she is.
She tells me, “Here I am”
Yes, and the other
Isn’t dead, but has everlasting life. . .

The girl from next door, the borrowed child,
Said to me the other day, “ You like children so much,
Don’t you want to have some of your own?”
I couldn’t believe that she could say it.
I thought: “Surely you can look at me and see them.”

When I see them in my dreams I feel such joy.
If I could dream of them every night!

When I sit and think of my dream of the little girls
It’s as if we were playing hide-and-seek.
The dark one
Looks at me longingly, and disappears;
The fair one stays in sight, just out of reach
No matter where I reach. I am tired
As a mother who’s played all day, some rainy day.
I don’t want to play it anymore, I don’t want to,
But the child keeps on playing, so I play.

Whoops! The site I copied that poem from made some errors in the fifth and sixth stanzas. Here are the corrected stanzas:

The young person who writes once a week
Is the authority upon herself.
She sits in my living room and shows her husband
My albums of her as a child. He enjoys them
And makes fun of them. I look too
And I realize that girl in the matching blue
Mother-and-daughter dress, the fair one carrying
The tin lunch box with the half-pint thermos bottle
Or training her pet duck to go down the slide
Is lost just as the dark one, who is dead, is lost.
But the world in which the two wear their flared coats
And the hats that match, exists so uncannily
That, after I've seen its pictures for an hour,
I believe in it: the bandage coming loose
One has in the picture of the other's birthday
The castles they are building, at the beach for asthma.

I look at them and all the old sure knowledge
Floods over me, when I put the album down
I keep saying inside: " I did know those children.
I braided those braids. I was driving the car
The day that she stepped in the can of grease
We were taking to the butcher for our ration points.
I know those children. I know all about them.
Where are they?"

Girl, you can write.

And there will never be another blog post to equal "Don't Pee in the Millennium Falcon." But I can see your point re: the kids.

I think of these occasional existential crises at life transitions as bran muffins for my soul. Which is why I'm not a great writer.

I suspect the time flies by as you get older whether or not you have kids. Just another way of "mother" Nature torturing us - the one time in your life that you want nothing to do with takes forever, and the rest of it zooms by. If we ever cure aging, I bet it'll get worse - we'll end up having hundreds of years go by without us noticing.

One thing I've resolved to do is to not take it personally when they get eager to grow up and/or move out. My own parents seemed to think that my eagerness to grow up was a personal affront to them - and they seemed to want me to be small and helpless and dependent on them forever. I simply stress to my kids (still in single digits) that the right way out is to finish high school and leave prepared to begin working on their own futures (college, the service, a non-dead-end job, etc). If they want to study ahead and leave early, I'll do what I can to help. I'll miss them, and I'll also be happy for them - watching them able to do things for themselves, and enjoying that ability, is the best part of parenthood, and will probably be so for the rest of our lives.

as I sit here with my not-yet 2 week old son in my arms and read this, it's hard to believe the whole diapers to high school thing.

then I glance across the hall where my almost 3 year old is and start to tear up....

thanks, Mich!