It's a cold January evening. My house is relatively quiet, relative to the normal clamour of seven bodies moving in seven different directions. Instead, the men of my tribe are doing what men do: foraging and hunting. And after a full day of 'girl only' time, my two oldest girls have settled themselves before the television to relax with a movie, and the 'baby'---can you still call them that when you are pretty sure that they are smarter than you?--- is slung haphazardly across my lap having given in to the sweet lullaby of sleep.
It seems like only yesterday when I started this blog. Me and my humble little beginnings with tales of infants and toddlers and the life of a under-qualified mother. Now I am staring into the face of the year when I become the mother of a teenager.
In the blinking of an eye.
It seems as though that warning label should be stamped across our newborns sweet cheeks upon arrival into this world.
Everyone told me that when I was a new mother. I think they said it in an attempt to encourage...or forewarn me, in those moments when only my hair had a wilder look than my eyes. When sleep deprivation was as common as ear infections. Surrounded by my youngins sitting in church, some lovely older woman would gently touch my shoulder and say, "It seems like only yesterday when I was in your place. They will be grown and gone before you know it." I remember smiling and assuming senility had already set in.
In the blinking of an eye.
No, mine aren't 'grown and gone'. But they are growing. And going. In five directions each and every day. I don't understand it. It is a mystical mystery. How is it that I feel as though I haven't aged in mind or spirit even a day...(my body is another story), since they were born, yet they seem to grow and change from one tucking into bed to the next?
I do not believe that we need an Instruction Manual when we take our kids home, but a little warning label might be nice.
In the blink of an eye.
