Standing at the sink window looking out over the dusky backyard...washing out a hot wheels thermos so g can have chili tomorrow for his school lunch and suddenly it washes over me once again just how fast kids grow up.
One minute, you are bleary-eyed, stumbling through a nightlit hallway to the nursery to comfort or feed a mewing newborn in the wee hours of the night. You are hauling half the nursery with you every time you leave the house. Your diaper bag replaces the purse you used to carry in pre-kid days. Driving in the car means latching and attaching and tucking and chucking toys and goldfish into tiny hands. Do you have hand sanitizer and baby wipes and play dough and snacks and water and a blanket for the park and a ball and a change of clothes and an extra shirt for you in case someone loves on you with icky, sticky hands or barfs or worse.
And then, one day, you walk out to the car and realize everyone has latched their own seatbelts after letting themselves in and are sitting there with books or toys THEY brought and sipping water from their SIGGS and wondering what took YOU so long to get there. And you feel proud and sad and happy and nostalgic and free all at once. That snuggy baby head smell is now replaced with equally good in its own way sweaty boy hair smell and lavender shampoo girl hair smell.
You want and need your kids to grow up. You want them to have independence and wings and self-sufficiency. But you still want them to want you. My mom was right -- kids are your little kids no matter how big they get. I just don't want to miss any of it. Sappy. Maybe. Who cares.
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