Time Took the Kids

My daughter Melissa is sad. Her maternity leave is over and she has to rejoin the workforce next week. My newest grandson is almost three months old, but has outgrown size “3 M” clothing, especially the footed kind. Melissa said that she had him dressed in tiny little jeans and a onsie and it made her cry.

She said “He looked like a little boy.”

I reminded her that he is, in fact, a little boy.

“But he’s growing so fast, he doesn’t look like a little baby anymore.”

And that… well, that reminded me that my babies are all grown up now. After we hung up the phone, it was my turn to cry.

I miss the wonderful times I had with my “kids” when they were little, so many memories. I don’t miss a lot of it, though. Really. I will admit it here and now, I’m not a huge fan of babies. Don’t get me wrong. I adored my own babies, and my grandbabies too. But…there are a lot of things about babies that I am happy to leave in the past. Diapers. Spit up. Crying. Colic. Lack of sleep. Wait…I still have that one.

Alex, my oldest, has passed the age that people growing up in my era would consider trustworthy. Anyone else remember that saying? “Don’t trust anyone over…” He’s married now, and has a daughter and son of his own. His kids are growing up faster than mine did, or at least it seems like that to me. They live far away, so we don’t get to see them as often as we would like. I can’t say much about the distance. After all, when my “big kids” were born, I was living in Venezuela. At least we can drive 15 or 16 hours and visit. My granddaughter will be starting first grade in the fall, her little brother will be in Kindergarten. Where does the time go?

It seems like just the other day that Melissa was my beautiful rambunctious little…well, to be honest, she was more than a handful. She was so cute, and she knew it, she was also sneaky and was very good at getting into mischief. She grew into an extremely responsible and remarkably wonderful woman. She is a good wife and a fantastically conscientious mommy. I am so very proud of her. (And for the record, I want to officially take back all the times I said “When you are a mother I hope your child gives you the same…” well, we all know how that saying goes. The person she is today does not deserve that kind of mischief from her offspring, so I hope she has only the best of motherhood. THAT is what she deserves.)

My youngest, Karina, was sick. Often. She has a couple of chronic things that she will deal with for the rest of her life and we spent much more time dealing with illnesses with her than the older two put together. I have a plethora of medical knowledge that I never wanted to have. We never allowed her to play the “oh poor me, I am sickly” game. We allowed, no, we encouraged her to take part in any activity she wanted to try. There were times that she physically was unable to do things that she wanted to, so she had to quit. Extreme anemia stopped her softball days, repeatedly sprained ankles stopped dance lessons, and severe mono pulled her out of school for much of her freshman year of high school. But she is now a confident independent young woman. She just finished her first year of college with a very high GPA, and is about to go on a great adventure…chasing her dreams.

Next week that cute little baby, who looks like a little boy, will be baptized. He is starting to play more, grasping at toys, kicking a foot-activated baby music toy. Melissa told me that he loves it when she reads to him and tries to play with the books. I am glad that he likes books. It is fitting…and genetic.

But time really is going by too fast. Babies grow up too soon. I love who my “kids” are today, but I miss them as little kids.