Too fast....

Do you ever feel as though life is just moving too fast? It sure does to me.

It feels like my children are moving at the speed of light; they are constantly changing, growing taller, learning a new skill or word or behavior.

I woke up the other morning to a beautiful five year old girl with gangly legs. Where did that last bit of baby-ness go? I wanted to wrap her up in my arms and cry. It doesn't seem fair. I'm so busy putting out "fires" all day long that I feel as though I don't have time to observe the process of my children growing.

What I really want to do is sit on the floor and watch my children grow. I want to mark each step with delight! I don't want to turn around like I did the other day and discovered Eve's legs had grown five inches. Or all of the sudden hear Judah talking like he's a big boy. No! He's my baby boy. None of that talking in full sentences complete with reasoning skills. No! Worst of all, my sweet baby 'Liza is turning six months in a couple of days. How in the world is that even possible?

And I don't even feel like my priorities are out of whack. I do the things that need to be done. Yet I feel as though I barely have time to enjoy my children. Really enjoy them. I feel as though life is just speeding by and I missed the train.

Yesterday Eve had a lesson in how to ride a bike without training wheels. Why must we be at that point already?

I say... training wheels forever.

"No, Eve, you may not grow up. I won't allow it."

"Why, mama?"

"Because I said so, darn it!"




It's too bad I'm not in charge. Life would be so reasonable.

I think what this all boils down to is that I am scared. Scared that I will have regrets when I get to the end of life. Regrets that I didn't give my children all of me, only parts. Scared that I will have always been tired or won't have remembered the small stuff - the details that are so important to my little ones.

That little poem haunts me - you know, this one:

Song for a Fifth Child

by Ruth Hulburt Hamilton
1958

Mother, oh Mother, come shake out your cloth, empty the dustpan,
poison the moth, hang out the washing and butter the bread,
sew on a button and make up a bed.

Where is the mother whose house is so shocking?
She's up in the nursery, blissfully rocking.
Oh, I've grown shiftless as Little Boy Blue (lullaby, rockaby, lullaby loo).
Dishes are waiting and bills are past due (pat-a-cake, darling, and peek, peekaboo).
The shopping's not done and there's nothing for stew and out in the yard there's a hullabaloo,
but I'm playing Kanga and this is my Roo.
Look! Aren't her eyes the most wonderful hue?

The cleaning and scrubbing will wait till tomorrow, for children grow up,
as I've learned to my sorrow. So quiet down cobwebs.
Dust go to sleep. I'm rocking my baby and babies don't keep.

Gosh, I feel like crying every time I read that stinkin' poem. Probably because it's so true; babies don't keep. After three of them I have found that out, much to my chagrin.

But, I must go now because I have a babe to rock...