My 6-year-old finished kindergarten earlier this week. Such occasions often call for sentiments such as “My how time has flown!” or “It seems like just yesterday we brought him home from the hospital.”
But you know what? To me, it does not seem like yesterday. It seems like six years ago. They have been very happy years but they’ve also been full years, with much packed in to the 8760* hours that comprise each one. I’ve had two other babies and written several books. There have been parties and trips and a move to a different state. There have been long evenings spent struggling to get children to sleep. There have been plane flights that seemed to last forever. There have also been happy hours spent snuggling over books or pushing the stroller or watching the kindergarten play. There have been nights spent catching fireflies and seeing my kids devour ice cream in little Jersey Shore ice cream parlors parlors.
All these activities comprise their own memories — not a wash of nebulous time, but pictures in albums and blog posts and notes in journals. The time has not flown. It’s marched steadily as it always does, as it will through first grade and onward.
*8784 in leap years. There have been 2 since 2007.
Hahaha, you’re an unnatural mother too!
nicoleandmaggie.wordpress.com/2013/03/06/unnatural-mother/
@nicoleandmaggie – or at least not prone to sentimental statements 🙂
I’m guessing you may also not be feeling the bittersweetness of your oldest baby growing up? Possibly just the sweetness portion?
I like seeing them grow into being their own people. I loved watching him on stage in the kindergarten play…I like how my toddler is learning more and more words so she can finally start to tell us what’s on her mind (though the abundant use of the word “no” is a bit grating). Babies are cute and fun but bigger kids start to get really interesting.
I’m enjoying the stage of reading my daughter’s blogs and the comments of her readers!
Awww.
My mom doesn’t want to read my blog :(. But she does read my publications.
I hear the “time flies” statement all the time and might even say it out of habit. But I actually don’t dwell on that. Although I love the baby phase, I’m enjoying every stage as much as possible and acknowledging that there were certainly many difficult days and sleepless nights in those early years.
@OilandGarlic – I think there are a lot of phrases about parenthood people say out of habit. I guess it’s just our need to say something!
I understand what you’re saying. In a sense, I do feel like time flies faster, the older I get, so sometimes it does feel like yesterday that my kids were little.
But on the other hand, those years can also feel like they were a really long time ago. It’s been 7+ years since I was pregnant the last time, and it seems odd to think that I ever was pregnant now.
Oh, and like you, I did adore my babies, but I’m not sad to be past that stage. There are awesome things that happen when kids get older (like having an oldest sibling who can babysit!!)
the days are long but the years are short …
to me it is bittersweet and in a perfect world everyone would have a lot of kids — with help — parenting inside a big extended family in a world that was not overpopulated… it is a mess but it is a beautiful, happy mess … and only sad that not every child can have an awesome awesome childhood since it is so awesome to be a parent — uncle, aunt, anything with kids…. the trick is to be present I think which is hard to do in our culture and in a modern world… that there were so many simple amazing moments doesn’t make me any less nostalgic … it is almost impossible to fully appreciate the good stuff or accept the bad such that I always feel that twang… maybe it is b/c you have 3 and I have 2 !!!
i only stopped breastfeeding 2 months ago, and yet it seems SO foreign that i did it — as if it were years ago! to me, the time seems like it is passing very quickly but that there are WORLDS between the different stages.
My oldest just graduated from high school and turned 18 and I agree, it hasn’t flown. I’ve enjoyed all of it. I did, however, get a bit weepy last night at the grocery store when the cart in front of me had a little girl with little blond curls in a ponytail and that’s the real “time that flew” because in fact it has flown and will not be this way again. I was told that when my daughter leaves for college it’s not their 18-year-old self you will miss (that one will still be texting and asking for money) — it’s the little person who’s already gone that you miss and that’s been true for me so far. (I’ll let you know in the fall!)
ok, i just teared up at that image of the shopping cart and 18 year old annabel in college. !!!!