Someone wrote to me last week and said, “The days are long, but the years are short.”  As I watched the girls anxiously awaiting their turn on the Carousel at The Children’s Museum, I found tears rolling down my cheeks.  How many more years will this seem magical?  With both girls in full day school in just a couple of short months, how many lazy days will we spend inside the hallowed walls of our favorite haunt next year?

The days with young children used to feel endless and almost painfully long. Slowly, over the past year, the clock started cranking up, and now the days are absolutely lightening fast.  I no sooner finish the breakfast dishes that I find myself starting dinner.  Between play and camps and crafts and curriculum and therapies, we barely find time for rest.  I hug their tiny frames every night, and thank God I didn’t miss it while I was “busy making other plans”.  I no longer miss my career, not even a little bit.  In its place is the missing of Kelly’s tiny voice, asking to ride the “caroself”; Sara begging to have “pank panks” for breakfast.  I don’t miss carrying and hauling and caring for small children, but with 5 and 3 almost gone, I miss it already.  With 6 and 4 upon us (and at my age, my peers are telling me their teenager horror stories), I am acutely aware of how short the childhood days really are…