My children are getting older. About a month ago my kids had their school pictures taken. The photos came back to me last week and I was amazed at the enormous changes that had taken place in the last year.
My daughter has grown at least six inches in height since last fall and now thinks it's great that we share the same shoe size. (Great for her as the arch in my left foot is falling, so I have to kiss all my cute flats goodbye- to her.)
My son had grown in height and in his imagination as well. By the looks of things at present, my daughter could become a shoe designer or basketball pro and my son could become an artist or a stand up comic.
Votes are out on both of them for now, but in ten or twenty years it would be fun to look back on my motherly predictions and most likely be off on both guesses.
But I will still keep guessing.
It is in the way that we mark time that we find our perspectives on life so changeable. When recalling the days of diaper and high chairs, I may romanticise the way that time actually played out in reality. As time passes we forget the bouts of diarrhea, sleepless nights and days too hectic to even get a shower. I remember the snapshots of learning to walk, the first sleep filled night, and the jubilient laughter of my kids taking a bath.
The truth is, that all those memories are pieces of my life. The happy, the sad, the impossible and the possible moments all compose a scrapbook of pictures that makes me me and my family what it is: a wonderful, mysterious, simmering concoction of unpredictable life.
So on those days that the spirted teenager I find living in my house being a little too spirited or my son's sense of humor has gone a bit too far, I can remember the bouts of diarrhea and bottles and bottles of Pedialite consumed and smile to myself. If I got through that not so picture perfect moment - I can get through this one too.
Some might say that walking up hill is hard. I think that it would be harder if we hadn't started walking up that hill and couldn't look down and see how far we've come.
I know that there are many "hills" ahead of me, but I know I will climb them one at a time and be able to look back someday and see how much I've grown.
The new school pictures have been placed in the frame with all the kid's photos of years past - I think it's about time I got my picture taken too!
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