Time Passages

[image error]So as many of you already know, my life for the past year and a half has been all about helping my daughter find the perfect college.  And I'm happy to report that the Quest has ended in success.  She was accepted into the honor's program at her number one choice, Emerson College.  And I have to say that there were several other equally wonderful schools in the running.

And while this is a time for celebration at our house, it's also bittersweet.  It seems like just yesterday that my child was a born.  And we drove like one mile an hour all the way home, terrified that we'd do something to injure her before she even made it home!

I remember holding hands with my husband as she cried through her first night wondering what in the heck we'd gotten ourselves into.  And then holding her and being in awe of her perfect little face, and toes and hands.   (And if you have any doubt of that, I've got like 2 million photos of that time period, second by second basically.   We have a wonderful video of me talking to my newborn as I try, for like fifteen minutes, to get her squirming body into one of her new outfits, only to find that it's about two sizes to large and that we'll have to start all over again.  It's no wonder she's shunned fashion pretty much ever since.

I remember sitting on a bed in a hotel in Austria, with a screaming baby and no doctor and no husband (he was at work and it was before the days of cell phones) thinking I'd made the most horrible of[image error] mistakes.  But I also remember six months later when, while in the castle at Prague, she took her very first steps.

I also remember her walking in the house as a four year old and telling me that she wasn't going to wear dresses any more, and when I inquired why, she told me that it hurt her knees when she pretended to be a dog.  I remember easter egg hunts and excitement over reindeer eating the hay she'd left for them the night before Christmas.

I remember when asked who Jesus was, she replied, 'the man with all the big houses'.  (We'd lived in Europe and travelled all over everywhere and every time we went into a catheral I'd say 'This is Jesus's house', so it was a logical conclusion)  Try explaining that to a pre-school teacher.  I also remember when she walked out of Mulan and told me that she wanted to see more movies [image error]like that one.  To my question why, she replied, 'because the girl was the hero.'

There are so many memories.  All of them precious to me.  And while I know that there will be new memories, I'm also aware that a chapter in her life and mine is closing.  And although  I celebrate the excitement of the adventure that lies ahead,  I also can't believe how quickly the time has passed, and if she'd let me, I think I'd just sit and hold her until—this time—I quit crying.

Celebrate the future and the past!

What about you?  Stories to share about your babies?  About their heading off to college?   I'm sure I'll be talking about this all again come September.