Life In The Fast Lane

With one day left in our Spring Break, I can’t believe I’m about to type the following words: it’s been a quick week.

Not that I lied to you before (see previous post) – there have been plenty of Darwinian moments, sisterly fights and times when I muttered bitterly under my breath, “Show me a mother who enjoys Spring Break and I’ll show you a woman with a full-time nanny along on the family ski trip” – but overall, we’ve had a great week. Honest. In fact, I’m going to miss certain aspects of it when the girls start school again on Monday.

Sleeping in past 6:30 a.m. each morning. Going to the movie and the park and ordering cheeseburgers and milkshakes from a 1950s-style diner instead of having to stick to our normal daily routine. Being able to leisurely eat dinner instead of racing through it so we still have enough time to pack lunches and backpacks, take baths, finish homework, etc. before bedtime.

We didn’t go out of town for Spring Break, but the beauty of kids this age is that they have fun doing just about anything, anywhere. Maybe I’m just getting sappy and sentimental because the girls are currently with their Dad running errands and the house is quiet and clean…and I’m already starting to miss them. But in spite of the moments when I begin to consider Joan Crawford a sympathetic character, I realize that children are young for such a short time in the grand scheme of things, and I have been given such an amazing gift as a mother.

Like Spring Break, the years go by fast even when the individual days go by slowly.

You may have read this before, but one of my favorite Erma Bombeck columns was written to remind a harried young mother that one day – before she knew it – her kids would be grown up and gone and she might be surprised at the things she missed about having children at home. It’s called “No More Oatmeal Kisses” and it reads in part:

“No more dandelion bouquets.
Think about it. No more Christmas presents out of toothpicks and library paste.
No more sloppy oatmeal kisses.
No more tooth fairy.
No giggles in the dark.
No knees to heal, no responsibility.
Only a voice crying, ‘Why don’t you grow up?’ and the silence echoing, ‘I did.’”