These are the Days

~These are days you'll remember. 

Never before and never since, I promise, will the whole world be warm as this. 

And as you feel it, you'll know it's true that you are blessed and lucky.~

                                   10,000 Maniacs

This time of year there are moms who are feeling the kick to the gut. It's hitting them hard. It's hitting US hard.

Oh, I'm not talking about the moms realizing this is the last summer before their little ones start kindergarten. I remember that, and there are lots of emotions with that. There really are. 

"He's not a baby anymore."

"What am I going to do with myself?"

"She's growing so fast."

But I'm not talking about those moms. The moms I'm talking about are quieter about these new feelings. Introspective. And they are scared. We are scared.

Our children aren't babies anymore, and they are still growing fast, but what stops us in our tracks, and what makes our stomachs drop like a free- falling elevator isn't that.

It's, "We don't have much longer with them."

It's, "It wasn't all supposed to happen this fast."

And, "What am I going to do with myself when the house is silent?"

It's a new emotion, and it's a scary one. 

I have friends who are sending kids to high school in the fall. Four more years in the nest. 

I'm sending my oldest to 7th, and it's painfully clear to me how fast these last years will go.

People always tell you to treasure every minute when they are babies because it will fly by quicker than you can imagine. 

But little did we know that THESE are the days we should be treasuring. The middle school and high school years. THESE are the MOST precious because this is the finale before we let them fly on their own. 

We hope to always have a wonderful relationship with our children even after they go out on their own. But let's face it, these years are the last that we will have the influence we have now. They are crucial years. Years where the best memories need to be made. Years where the truly important conversations need to happen. Years where we try to connect with them in a way that will always lead them back home.

The time is now. We already know that time went a lot faster than we thought it would. We learned that the hard way, just like every mother has before, and every mother will after.

This summer, there will be a lot of times they are hanging with their friends, which of course gets more and more frequent the older they get. But those other times? The times they aren't?

I'm going to savor it. 

I'm going to do my very best to savor every second. I'm going to drink it in with a new perspective. 

I don't have endless piles of time handed to me on a silver platter, like it used to feel in the early years of motherhood. I have chunks of time. I must be deliberate with each sacred piece. 

These can be the best days of our lives with our kids. Why? Because we have the gift of perspective. The gift of knowing that as Goethe said, "Nothing is worth more than this day."

Let's use each day as a gift, a chance to build connections that will always lead them home long after they have learned to fly on their own.