I feel like I should apologize, somewhat, about my kids not tantruming anymore. To be honest, they were never huge tantrumers; they were more like constant negotiators, or sulkers, or providers of long streams of very annoying complaints. It’s always something, though, isn’t it?
This week, marking the last week of school, has been particularly trying. Evidently Mark’s life is OVER. He is very sad to be leaving kindergarten, and, in particular, to be leaving his very lovely kindergarten teacher. He is spontaneously-burst-into-tears sad. He’s clever, that boy, he realizes that once he leaves kindergarten, the party is over. It’s all business from here on in.
Last summer I made lists of plans of things to do and marked them in my calendar in a nice, structured, “and at 11:00 we will have fun” kind of way. This year I have much less structure in mind but a whole lot of fun things to do, so hopefully Mark’s sadness will be left at the school’s Sports Day on Friday.
Sometimes I look at pictures from before we had kids and I think how young I look in them. I think that I must have rapidly aged, then I remember that my oldest is now six and heading for Grade One and it’s not rapid aging per se, it’s just that time is going fast and I’m getting older. Here we are at the beginning of summer, with the long, long days just ready to be filled. When I was out shopping the other day, I observed countless young mothers, pushing strollers and carrying babies in Bjorns, and doling out sippy cups and snacks to toddlers while simultaneously feeding babies, and I remembered exactly what that was like. I remembered the days that just dragged, where I scheduled something for each day, an outing to the mall here, meeting a friend for coffee there, because I badly needed something, anything, to fill my days. Now the days fly by and I feel like there is not enough time, not enough hours in the day to do what I want to do, the kids are up and dressed and the next thing I know it’s time to start bedtime rituals. My children are heading to kindergarten and Grade One in the fall, and I want to say I don’t know where the time went, but I do know. It was scheduled, and tedious, and filled with child-maintenance activities, and now it’s summer and I want to fill it with happiness and good memories, and be a fun mother to my rapidly aging boys.
October 2005.
June 2010
