Time Keeps on Slippin'

For some reason, I distinctly remember the last day of second grade. I remember being so excited for summer vacation to come - to play softball (and do all the other 100+ summer activities my mom so graciously carted us to each year) - to spend days at the beach - to read my little heart out at the library's Summer Reading Program...and with all of that greatness stretched out before me, when I was 8, the three months of summer seemed like an eternity. Shoot - just that morning of waiting to go to school for the last day of the year felt like forever. Flash forward 24 years, though, and that moment seems like more than a lifetime ago.

While I still have long mornings some days (hello, Tuesdays!), the three months that equal a typical summer break can now slip by before I even realize it, regardless of the time of year. All of a sudden it will occur to me that I haven't had a hair cut in a few months or I'll think that I just pulled out a new season of clothes for the kids to wear when in fact all of RL's pants are too short (OK, just the 18 mo. size, which they should be since she is two for pete's sake!) and HD's all have holes in the knees (no, seriously. the kid has two pairs of pants right now that are both long enough and hole-free - it's insane). Is that a sign of aging? When the days turn to weeks turn to months turn to years so quickly that you can hardly catch your breath, much less feel their enormity the way you once did?

Perhaps it is just my current season of life with so many littles. I realize that one day my world will be just like mom's used to be in the summer - running from here to there and from this to that constantly - so it's not like I expect life to slow down at all, but there's something about the frantic rate at which the children are growing and developing right now that has my head spinning. The new abilities (HD's independent play, RL's talking, LT's army crawling) and the milestones (HD starting the fourth quarter of his second year of preK, RL potty training herself, LT eating more solids) have all come so fast. Wasn't HD just learning to pull himself up on the furniture and RL trying yogurt (and loving it!) for the first time? As a friend asked this morning, didn't I just have Lincoln like a week ago? I realize I sound like a nostalgic ninny right now, but for seriously - how is it the end of March already? How are my babies growing so fast? Where does the ding-dang time GO?

Maybe I'm just distracted by life in general. The weeks really do fly by with teaching and play dates and Ben's meetings after school and yoga (I'm up to three classes a week now!). Every Sunday I load up our white board with menus and schedules for each day of the coming week and every Sunday we look at it and go, Whoa. Hold on to your hats, boys and girls! It's just that busy. So when you add in the insanity of the daily routine of feedings and naps and diaper changes and Angry Birds (on the Kindle, yes, but also throughout our house thanks to the plastic/plush figurines and this crazy game Ben made up where we "launch" the children in the dining room and they run circles through the house - it is fab for busting out pent-up winter energy!), no wonder I don't know where the last few months have gone. There's just been a lot on my plate. And there will continue to be so for forever and ever, amen, I hope, because to be this busy, to be spinning this many plates, means my house and my heart are full. Honestly, I can't think of a better way to spend my precious, fleeting time.