Enjoy the Swing

Today was an enjoyable day for me. I got to take a trip down memory lane. As many of you know, Lynne over at And Babies Make Six and I are good friends. Great friends, actually. Well, her husband is in the hospital so she needed someone to pick the kids up from preschool so she could stay with him. Since I was home "sick" today, I was glad to help.

So when we got home, it was a beautiful fall day out, they just got a new swing last week for their birthday, and the first words out of Austin's mouth were, "Can we play outside today?" And who am I to be a spoil sport. Of course, we can play outside, Austin! So outside we went.

And we swang, and we played in the sand, and we played on the Little Tikes climby thing, and Tyler and John "hiked" through the woods (I mean shrubs...), and we swang some more. And as we were swinging, and the boys were calling to me from the top of the fort, my mind wondered.

It seems like only yesterday that Youngest Child and I were swinging in our backyard waiting for OC to get off the bus. It seems like only yesterday that I took YC to the park for the first time to feed the ducks and play on the baby slide that was way too big for her. It seems like I have only blinked a couple of times since the girls used to love to go out in the backyard and play in the sandbox together. Now, getting them to do anything together is quite an accomplishment. One of YC's favorite things to do was wait in the driveway for the school bus. We would go out extra early so she could get in plenty of bike-riding time before OC got off the bus.

So as the babies were swinging, and Austin was saving the world, I was walking down memory lane. How quickly I've gone from "Will my girls remember this?" to "I hope my girls forget about this one". Where have those days gone? The carefree days of play dates (for moms as well as the kids), spending mornings at the park feeding the ducks, story time at the library...far be it from me not to have the most well-educated child on the block.

When did it get to be school/homework/dinner/bed - and wake up tomorrow so you can do it all over again? Where has all the time gone? The girls have gotten older, but I certainly haven't. So enjoy the swing. Swing them high, swing them low. But by all means, swing them. For you, too, will blink your eyes only once or twice and they will be in high school and middle school, you will be the dumbest person on the planet, and they will need your help for nothing other than driving them somewhere to do something with someone they like.

Enjoy the swing, babies...and happy birthday! (Maybe by the time you're 30, I'll quit calling you babies!)