These days

I just don't get it.  How in the world can time go by so fast.  One minute I am a nervous wreck of a first time mother strapping her newborn into a winnie the pooh (don't judge) car seat and then next minute I am watching him pitch during a high school baseball game.

Gone are the days when I sneaked into their rooms and placed my hand on their backs just to make sure they were still breathing.  Gone are the days of them smelling like anything that comes out of a Johnson and Johnson's bottle.

Last night while driving home from the high school baseball game, I turned and looked in the back seat at our oldest son.  He was talking and playing with our youngest son and it was all I could do not to burst right there.  He looks so old, so grown up, so mature.  And his brother is so little, so young, just lost his first tooth.  It's really crazy how life works.  I've spent so many hours worrying over them, praying over them, scolding them, hugging them and in an instant they are grown and getting ready to make lives of their own.

I know life is meant to be this way.  Raise them the best way you can and when they are old, you hope and pray that all your time and effort and gray hair will mean something.  You hope that they will grow those wings and fly to heights that you've never known.  You hope that they surpass you.  You hope that their lives will count for something good.  Something meaningful.  Something eternal.

But for now, I am gonna bask in all things kindergarten, sixth grade and ninth grade.  Except when they are fighting.  Or whining.  Or tattling.  Or crying.  I am not gonna bask in that. Nor will I bask in the final total of my grocery bill. Or the restaurant bill.

Cause these boys can eat.