Yes. You’re right. It goes so fast. Just yesterday I had a kid and today he’s almost 9. How did that happen? How did he suddenly get those knobby-kneed legs and a smart(er) mouth and a running speed that makes me work as hard as I can to not completely embarrass myself when we’re racing up the street because he’s really good at the flight response when anything doesn’t go his way. (He doesn’t know we’re racing, but we totally are. Also, he’s not really running away, for those who are concerned. He just needs a little run sometimes, to get some steam off. He knows where he’s loved most, and he’ll always come back. I just like to get a little exercise and make sure he doesn’t get run over by the neighborhood kids coming home from school and trying to drive by iPhone).
I’m familiar with the whole time-flying thing.
It’s just that this weekend Husband and I get to have a kid-less weekend. It’s the first time in 2015 that we’ve had the opportunity to spend three consecutive days without all the kids (thanks, Mom! I’m sure we’ll have to detox, but those three days are worth it every time!), and I am counting down the days.
Which means the days are crawling.
I’ve lived enough hours for it to be Friday already. Except it’s not. It’s still Monday afternoon.
See, this morning we woke up at 3 because a seal was in our house. It wasn’t really a seal, but we didn’t know it then. Husband got out of bed before I could tell him to be careful with that burglar who brought a seal with him, which sounds odd now that I’m fully awake and not in a dream reverie, but made total sense at 3 a.m. Husband came back to say it was one of the 3-year-olds, courting a croupy cough. So we got to have a little 3 a.m. escapade and give the boy some breathing treatments to loosen all those allergens, and then we got to try to go back to sleep knowing our alarm was going to go off in an hour and a half.
I don’t remember what happened after that, because the next thing I know the alarm was clanging and the house was quiet and I wanted to sit and enjoy it for as long as I possibly could before the morning rush started.
And then the morning rush started, and the 8-year-old couldn’t find his shoes, so we walked to school without him, and the croupy 3-year-old kept barking all the way so other parents would turn to look, and I was like, “What, it’s a free country? I can be outside with my sick kid if I want to,” but maybe they just thought it was a seal chasing them and I was misinterpreting all those glares. Then we got back to the house and it turns out the schoolboys had left out a million and a half things so every other second I had to say, “Nope. Don’t touch that. It’s your brother’s,” while I followed along behind, trying to minimize the damage two very persistent 3-year-olds can do while the baby bounced happily in his little bouncer seat that was, unbeknownst to me, rocketing his poop all the way up his back. He was happy. That’s all I knew. And since it takes four people to take care of the twins, I was doing pretty good just being one.
Nap time lasted fifteen minutes, two toilets nearly overflowed, Lightning McQueen caused a fist-fight, the plunger saw some unsupervised action, and I kept thinking surely it was already Friday. Surely.
And now here I am, Monday afternoon, with four more days between me and the day I can wake up without those delightful little footsteps already pattering down the hall, ready to pound on my door and scare me from sleep.
So, yeah. I know time flies. Most days I don’t want it to. This day (and the next four) I do. So go on, time. Fly.
