Summer with the Trifecta 2013

Summer With The Trifecta 2009 (loving that Kelly’s tongue is out in both pictures)

As the girls and I sat in the dolphin show at the Zoo last week, my eyes filled with tears, and Sara leaned over and whispered, “Oh no, not again…wait…that True Colors song is playing. Avery, she always cries during this song.” I do, without embarrassment, weep at the sound of Cyndi Lauper belting out “And that’s why I love you, Don’t be afraid to let them show!”…responding with anything less than a watershed of tears would make me a boy, or someone born before 1970 or after 1977. We’ll call these years the Cyndi Lauper Sweet Spot.

Daddy & Sara, Summer 2005

Daddy & Sara, Summer 2013

But it’s more than the tears.  I cry a lot, so let’s move on, shall we? In May, a turning point event happened in my sphere: the first baby born to my gang of college roomies graduated from high school, and as if that weren’t enough to bring us to our collective knees (recalling his Christmas day birth), he’s accepted a position at our Alma Mater as a Long Snapper on the football team. Gasp, tears, oh my God, who could top this…gasp. I haven’t cared this much about college football…well…um…ever.

As I watched our Alpha Baby’s life-in-pictures video at his Open House, I realized what a blink his life has been to me. 18 years…blink. He was an infant on my lap, yanking at my glasses just yesterday.  I bought him forbidden Pokemon school supplies for his first day of Kindergarten…yesterday. I talked to him on the phone after his first day of high school…yesterday. And just like that, I gave him a hug, some pizza gift cards, and told him I’d be in the stands when he played his first college football game. He knows we’ll be there, his 5 College Aunts, embarrassing the hell out of him.  My God, the things we’ve stopped ourselves from doing (i.e. NOT toilet papering the trees of his first heartbreak, NOT pranking his Prom date…oh no…we’re not good people, are we?).

When I had the girls, I assumed parenting was super-duper-forever. They’d always be under my feet, shooting crumbs from their fingers, requiring assistance for every possible human bodily function imaginable. Honestly, there were many long afternoons I’d suspected I’d made a huge mistake.  I’m not meant for this level of responsibility. I felt the exhaustion would never end. My emotional stores would never replenish. But I see now how wrong I was…I was living in the tunnel of toddlerhood, which is oh-so-very difficult.  And as wildly as it came…it left.

Daddy & Kelly, Summer 2007

Daddy & Kelly, Summer 2013

Now I’m in the blessed magic years, when Santa still exists, along with a semblance of rational conversation, but the Holocaust never happened.  I don’t have to explain why Americans had slaves, and watch as their innocence is chipped away and replaced with…adulthood. Yuck. The magic years are filled with a constant stream of sentences beginning with the word, “Pretend…hey Kelly and Avery, pretend we’re stuck in this castle, and you’re secretly mermaids…”. The Easter Bunny visits, and boyfriends are an idea better left for Auntie Amanda. A lazy day includes 2 hours of swimming, an hour running wildly through the yard, 2 games of school, 5 games of mermaid, a board game with Mommy, some biking, 3 outfit changes, bickering over the TV and computer, and one PB&J.

Auntie Amanda, Christmas 2008

Auntie Amanda, Summer 2013

I’m starting to see parenting for what it is: a very short season. 18 years to kisses at the college gate…wow…that’s just not as long as it used to be. My sweet niece is halfway there, and she really was born yesterday.  Come one guys…2004 was yesterday. I can prove it.  I took this yesterday:

And…BAM!

If I so much as say BAM! one more time, she’ll be wearing a high school cap and gown. There was a time, when they were spitting up on my shirt, keeping me up all night, and unintentionally destroying my house (it’s intentional now, but less frustrating since I taught them to mop), and I wanted nothing more than to grab a handful of bobby pins and secure the caps to their heads. Pomp away ladies…come on “the College years”.

But that sensation has long passed.  Now the days fly by too quickly. The school years are barely a breath. The cotton-haired babies stumbling around in footy pajamas are now long-legged birds I have to tri-fold to fit in my lap.  Correction: I have to fold Kelly into my lap.  Sara now reaches my collarbone, and is nearly ready to cuddle me.

I have a sneaking suspicion these years of bicycle-bruised and bug-bitten legs will be my favorite. This tiny moment before clothes shopping becomes an exercise in cost-containment, and boys are more than just the gross kids at lunch. I like this part…bring on Daddy texting the Tooth Fairy and me swearing I saw her glittery trail of dust when I came in to tuck the quilts (just one more time…I swear, I’m checking on them just ONE more time).

Isn’t that the way with life?  You finally settle in and get used to something, and it changes? I guess if life were different, we’d never appreciate it. We’re so woefully imperfect…we silly humans.

But you know what is perfect? God’s plan for adults to improve themselves by simply procreating.  How did he know we’d learn a thing or two from the babes whose first order of business was to take apart our lives? I’m just so damn glad I put 25 year old me in a drawer, and stopped listening to the selfish voice who told me not to do this. I’m so grateful 33 year old me decided to go a different way. Otherwise, 41 year old me would never be here writing the these words: This is such a gift.  I wish I could keep it.

I wish this season would stay, and these precious, beautiful things who slammed into my world 8 years ago would just…stay. The comments are open for suggestions on stopping the clock and/or potential rough drafts for time machines. I pay in pie. Godspeed my fellow parents.  Godspeed.