I have tried really hard to take the wisdom of those before me to heart.
Especially, "enjoy the children because they grow up all too quickly."
It is true they do grow up quickly and I have found the more children I have the faster they grow up. It wasn't too long ago I looked at my middles and wondered where the preschool/toddler days went. I realized the addition of baby after baby left me with blurry memories. Now I am losing those very same days with my youngest. The olders are bigger and busier and I find myself in this fight against time to gain time with each of them while they are at this very moment. Then there is the struggle with my own selfish nature of just wanting a quiet moment for myself, a nap, a moment to stop and truly look around. There are times when I get the chance to stop and take a deep breath and I realize my surroundings have changed. It is no longer summer, the leaves are falling off the trees and then I blink and I am running for hats and scarves because of the bite in the air.
Lately, I have been savoring the sweetness of Little Princess. Her desire to comfort and serve others. She loves giving back rubs and scratches. She is learning new domestic arts, which she really enjoys.
Savoring the preciousness of Flutter Nutter. He is quick to say thank you without prompting, flatter his momma with no prompting, just the pure love and joy in his heart, and his innocent honesty when he is reflecting on things.
Hockey Player has been renicknamed this year around the house. I affectionately call him "Man-Child" and/or "Mowgli". If you can't remember where these names come from, take sometime to review Jungle Book. In the blink of an eye, Hockey Player has grown. He is no longer a boy, but not quite a man. He is clipping those apron strings from mom and gently sending me packing. He does still dote on me in his own ways. But he is becoming a man. He even has hairy toes now! That sends me in shock...I remember those precious little baby feet, the ones I kissed and tickled. Now they are strong feet, feet with a purpose and destination. In them, I see strength and manliness and my momma's heart aches with the truth, the days with this man-child are numbered and quickly passing.
Fun Mom leaves me all twisted with joy and anxiety. Her aunt once said, God made babies and little children, cute and adorable so we would continue to care for them and enjoy them. (Even if they flushed hot wheels and animal figurines down the toilet...my addition) But God, also made them to grow up and in that process allowed them to become annoying and irritating enough that as parents we didn't mind clipping some of those apron strings and giving them a good positive shove out of the nest. I am enjoying walking alongside Fun Mom during these years. The conversations we are able to have. We are moving away from the time where everything I say she just takes in and accepts. She asks questions, she reflects, she ponders, she makes observations. There are more and more adult conversations between us. There are the moments when "the littles", as the younger siblings are called, provide humor to us, that only the two of us get and we can look at one another in amusement and smile. A special time, where we are both enjoying their innocence and yet sharing in the private joke. The beginnings of a friendship, that I hope and pray survives the coming years to the time when we are mostly past the role of mothering and daughtering. In the midst of these precious moments, she does something so shocking to my system I am reminded, she too is growing up. Another apron string has broken and the struggle for independence and adulthood is still enduring and I have to let go just a little bit more.
Then there is Daddy's Buddy. He has had a tough autumn. Lots of changes in this boy. No longer little. Impatient to be like his big brother Hockey Player. Slicing those strings with mom with great warrior-likeness to only come running back for a brief moment or two. Even those moments are getting farther apart. He has lost his first tooth and for him that means he has arrived to Big Kid status. He has his own personal struggles. Ones we are learning alongside with him about and how to help him overcome them. Part of that overcoming involves in our interaction with him. He responds best when he is spoken to as an adult. Everything is very mature and grown-upishness with him. This Christmas he keeps making plans to fill everyone's stockings, even though Santa does it. He is planning and organizing when all will get done. He has taken over the responsibility to make sure Christmas happens. Decorations, check; menu, check; presents, check; calendar countdown, check and so on.
It seems all too quickly, I have only one little one left in my nest, Flutter Nutter, and he is very content to stay little. You might even say he has Peter Pan syndrome. The others are all leaping from the nest and trying to soar. How does a momma stop to even sleep when she knows very well, that the time is coming when one by one her little ones are going to take off soaring and if she even blinks, she will miss it?
