You see that house down the street put up a sign about their graduating senior. Your daughter’s friend’s older brother just started medical school. You see a picture of some celebrity’s six- or seven-year-old…and realize you remember hearing the announcement of their pregnancy on a supermarket shelf. You hear that some professional athlete’s son has declared for the draft.
They were kids, just recently! You remember when they were babies! But now they’re grown up. A handful of years, critical years—the years between kid and adult, toddler and teen—they went by like that.
It’ll hit you sometimes when you see it happen to other families…as if the same thing wasn’t happening to your family. As if seven, eight, nine, ten years didn’t transpire at your home. It’s just that you saw your kids every day—you got lost in the day-to-dayness. It’s only when you are suddenly reminded via someone else that it hits you: it hits you how much time has passed, how fast they are growing up, how little childhood is left.
It’s not only happening to everyone else. It’s happening to you and your family and your kids. Remember that—and do not let these precious remaining years of their childhood slip by.
