Another year has passed me by in a jiffy and it is time to turn off those alarms. The alarms to wake up to make the school lunches, the alarms for the late pick ups from the school, the reminders for the concerts, to pay for the yearbooks and the ones to send in popcorn for a party...and yet I know everyone will be awake bright and early tomorrow even before the alarm would have rung... because, hey...who doesn't want to get up really really early on the first day of your hard earned summer vacation? I will see an almost teenager boy with a ball in his hand running up and down the stairs at 6 AM with "I am starving" written all over his face followed by a girl with curly hair blissfully walking down the stairs with a book in her hand!! And this is the same boy who showed me "will wake up in two minutes" by raising two fingers and then one minute and then thirty seconds right from under his sheets just until yesterday...
The beginning of the school year just feels like yesterday to me. I guess it's true that when things come to an end the beginning feels really close by but when you are in the midst of it all, it feels like every day is spread far and wide.
Soon there will be fights and yelling...fights for the same chair to sit on..fights for the same laptop to be used followed with complaints about who has gotten more electronic time and who is mom's favorite..soon there will be complaints about same food at lunch, dinner and breakfast. There will be a dozen shoes at the door, junk food wrappers on the floor... lemonade in the fridge and bug bites on the legs...
Just yesterday I was a mom who struggled to put two kids in the car seats and admired that toothless grin and waited to have meaningful conversations with them and today I am a mom who knows time is fleeting and if I have to create a zillion points on my graph, I better work hard and I better work fast. Today I am a mom who yells and the one who is in total disbelief that I can yell this much in this short time. And today I am also a mom who knows it's okay to yell. It is okay to behave like an imperfect human being. It is okay to have a messy house but playful kids. It is okay to be in those photos even when I think I look like a mess.
Soon there will be a time when I will be in the passenger seat. Soon I will witness that shy smile with the braces on. Soon I will see them go in their rooms and chat with their friends behind the closed doors... Soon there will be no more mess on the table. Soon things will be used as they are meant to be and they will be in the places they were supposed to be..Soon it will be 6 AM and there would be me hating the eerie silence because I can actually hear the clock ticking..
Here is to another summer of making memories and realizing that growing never has to stop..Cheers!!
