Oh how the years go by...

As all you parents know, some days at home seem to last so long. But then we look at our kids, and think "how did you get so big, so fast?" Here is an excerpt from Erma Bombeck's column entitled: "When the Children Have Grown Up." It really reminded me to cherish the small stuff!

"One of these days you'll shout, `Why don't you kids grow up and act your age', and they will. Or, `You guys get outside and find yourself something to do, and don't slam the door.' And they will. You'll straighten up the boys' bedroom, neat and tidy, bumper stickers discarded, bedspread tucked and smoothed, toys displayed on a shelf, and hangars in the closet, animals caged, and you'll say out loud, `Now I want it to stay this way', and it will. You'll prepare a perfect dinner with a salad that hasn't been picked to death, and cake with no finger traces in the icing, and you'll say, `There's a meal for company'. And you'll eat it all alone. There will be no more plastic tablecloths, stained with spaghetti, and no more bedspreads to protect the sofa from damp bottoms, no more gates to stumble over at the top of the basement stairs. You'll have no more anxious nights under a vaporizer tent, no more sand in the sheets, or Popeye movies in the bathroom. No more iron-on patches, wet, knotted shoestrings, tight boots, or rubber bands for pony tails. Imagine a lipstick with a point on it. And no babysitter for New Year's Eve. Washing only once a week, having your teeth cleaned without a baby on your lap, no PTA meetings, no carpools, no blaring radios. No one washing their hair at 11 o'clock at night, having your own roll of Scotch tape. Think about it! There'll be no more Christmas presents out of toothpicks and library paste. No more sloppy oatmeal kisses, no tooth fairy, no giggles in the dark, no knees to heal, no responsibility. Only a voice crying, `Why don't you grow up'. And the echo of silence saying, `I did.'"