on childhood and maturity

While recently in the book store I paged through a how-to-blog kind of a book. Somewhere in the first third it said something about how to use as few words as possible on each post. It struck me as amusing as I envisioned a blogging “expert” critiquing my blog. What would they say? Maybe not to write so much about nothing? Maybe to have an actual point?

This is where the surprise of blogging comes in for me. One of the things I love most about it was accidental. In the beginning I spoke of my kids with trepidation, but now three years later these silly little posts have given these mothering days a timeline of life. With just a few clicks I can see Henry’s first scraped knees or our house in Illinois. All those everyday thoughts I would have otherwise swept into the dustpan of a hurried life.

Just this morning I was thinking about how unique it is that our kids are kind of spaced out in age and the somersault of emotions that comes with that. Having our oldest away at school while her brother is here at home finding joy in getting to use a glue stick for the first time, it’s kind of a strange thing but it makes me happy all the same.

In the mailbox today was an assortment of postcards from Hadley.

She wrote this one to her Dad, who sent her a card that never made it to her box (and it had money in it!) and he hasn’t sent another one since.

It made me cry, her silly but heartfelt words to her Dad.

I’m not sure how to describe my relationship with my own Dad but I don’t think I could ever write and ask him if I should be a Trekkie.

And this was all in my head today as I sat to read Henry his afternoon prenap story and garumphed at him because he was taking forever to choose one. Then as he hoisted himself into my lap I realized he picked one of Hadley’s favorites.

It felt like just last week that I was garumphing at her to hurry up and pick a book. I try not to think about things like when was the last time I read Hadley a story? When was the last time she hoisted herself into my lap? Was I too busy to notice she was growing up?

And then my thoughts settle and I realize childhood is fleeting and the rest of the story is writing itself as we speak, kids grow up and learn from their parents then parents get older and learn from their kids.

And so even though I wrote this whole post myself I’m still not 100% on the point of it all. The blog expert would tell me I used way too many words. I would tell the blog expert to go suck on a lemon.