Snips and Snails and Puppy Dog Tails...

It has become somewhat of a Fall tradition to celebrate with a family birthday weekend, gathering in Raleigh to spend a day playing in the city and selecting a fine dining experience before retiring very late, sleeping just a little, and having a big breakfast before heading home.  In the spring, we are hard-pressed to get the family together even with Easter right around the corner.  But tomorrow is our youngest child's birthday. For about a month, I have been thinking about, and hoping to spend the day with him, just as I do with our oldest child in the fall.  We are going to manage to do so ON the day of his birth, driving up to take him shopping, lunch, and present him with gifts worthy of a 28-year old man. 

It is also a time I feel nostalgic about our kids, in a way that grips my heart a bit. After all, giving birth changes your life forever and you learn to love in a way that is impossible to explain with words. I wonder at the amazing people they have become, knowing I may have been a part of that but understanding it was only a very small part.  I feel so thankful I married a man who was my partner through these many ups and downs of child-rearing, sharing in every aspect of their lives from the very beginning.  I am indebted to the many people along the way who helped shape them and offered encouragement in their lives - both to them and to us!  I find that I am able to forgive the transgressions and know it has made them stronger and taught me lessons on letting go and allowing my children to grow and find themselves in the process.

Around their birthdays, I pour over old pictures of their newborn faces, wonder at how tiny they were, and how quickly they grew.  It seems now they grew up in a week, yet I remember at the time I thought it would last forever.  I vowed I would never regret a minute of raising our children.  Though there are no regrets specifically (I mean, who wouldn't wish they had had more patience?), I wouldn't mind feeling that grimey little hand tugging at my skirt and to look down into those big blue eyes and wide grin from either of my children. I remember them best at about 3 and 6, with the youngest as a happy, giggly, wiggly little boy and his sister, serious, contemplative, and loving.  The two together were often tangled in a war of power or ownership, but most often I have a video in my mind of the two children with the oldest in the lead, followed by a tow-headed little guy hanging on her every word...played out, of course, as only an intelligent, worldly big sister can. The two of them at that age seems more etched in my memory...to the point that at times, I still see that child in the depth of their eyes today.

I don't wish for time to play out differently.  Nostalgia is a part of growing older.  Instead, we are constantly amazed at the wonderful human beings they have become. Not perfect, mind you, just nice, kind people, sensitive to the needs of the world around them, and working hard to find their place in it.  We are so very proud of the people they are, and we enjoy being around them, with them, and they are still teaching us about life.  Now, we are learning how to be parents to adult children.  

So tomorrow we celebrate, laugh, enjoy the moments, and I will try to pack those memories away for the future.  And I wish him a year of love, laughter, and dreams coming true as only his mother can.