Time is a Tricky SOB

It’s Thursday. I love Thursdays. They mark another week in my pregnancy. And this isn’t just any Thursday. It’s the 39th Thursday! Thursday June 1, 2006. Good Lord! Where did this year go? Time is such a tricky SOB. I’ve been so hung up on the baby count down that every minuet has dragged by, and yet 2006 is half past. Weren’t we just celebrating New Year’s Eve? Jacob was officer on duty, and so was stuck on the submarine all night. I was pregnant and not feeling festive. I had dinner with the Booths' and was asleep before the ball dropped. Wasn’t that just a month ago? Surely it couldn’t really have been SIX MONTHS AGO!

The scary thing is that everything indicates time is only going to continue its pattern of seeming acceleration. EVERY parent I know, without exception, claims that the years literally FLY by. For example, my parents were my age when I was born, and they will swear that they blinked and I grew up and moved away overnight. One day they were in their late twenties holding their new baby girl the next they were fifty-something chatting with her on their weekend phone call. I’m not sure I am ready for that.

Of course the plan is to dig my heals in and take every single second and hold on to it as tight as I can. I won’t fall victim to the mundane! Each moment with my baby, each little baby smile, each little squirm he makes, and even each diaper will become a treasured second engrained on my mind!!! *Sigh* I wish. I just don’t want life to pass us by. I don’t want to wake up 25 years from now, turn to my husband and ask, “Where did our babies go?”

Of course, it seems that each step along the way holds its own joys and rewards. When the babies are little I guess you live for first smiles, first steps, and OH GOD, the first “I love you, Mom.” Next come kindergarten plays, chaotic Christmases, and family picnics. By the time you have teenagers, if you haven’t killed them or they haven’t driven you out of your mind, there can be National Lampoon style vacations, cheering your kid on in sports competitions, and the obligatory summer college tour.

By this time, as a mother and a woman, I had best developed a career of my own outside the home or I will go CRAZY! I can’t imagine dealing with the empty nest without something else fulfilling to devote my time and attention to. Provided I have done so, by the time the kiddos are in college hubby and I can really start having some fun. Top on my list of priorities is TRAVEL! I wonder if it will be the same by the time I reach that point in my life?

The stage my parents are entering seems blessed in many ways. Watching the kids become adults has got to be rewarding, thrilling, and sometimes a bit frightening! The career choices they make, the person they take as their spouse, the adventures they undertake are the fulfillment to the question and wonder parents have when they look into their little baby’s face. “Who will this tiny person become?” And of course the ultimate reward to parenting well done; THE GRANDCHILDREN! I really want grandbabies! (Is anyone chuckling that I haven’t even had my first kid yet?)

If I could make one wish for my family…both for my parents, siblings, and In-laws as well as for our new nuclear family, I would wish that despite any distance that may physically seperate us, that we always make the effort to be involved with each other’s lives. Have you ever seen the movie The Family Stone? EXCELLENT MOVIE! Jacob and I have seen it several times now and always laugh and cry at each viewing. But that’s how I want my family to be. A big boisterous unit, obviously very involved with each other’s lives. They aren’t afraid to speak their mind to one another and share exactly what they think of the other’s business…with hilarious consequences in the movie. I’m not sure it would always come out like that in real life, but I think it shows a real love and dedication to one another. I’ve come to believe that if you can’t talk about it with your family, who can you talk about it with? (Thank you, Jacob)

So there you go. If I’m going to blink and life will have sped me along 25, 35, 40 years, I hope it has sped me along to a huge Christmas dinner with my four, no FIVE kids and their wonderful spouses. We will be drinking a little too much wine and laughing at and with one another, all the while hollering to the “kiddy table” to sit down and eat their turkey and cranberry or Santa just might skip right over this house!

PS: Mom, do you recognize the house in the picture?