This Might Take Me Out

My babes have always loved me swimming with them.  I even wear a cute, modern-retro halter one piece, conservative yet stylish.  Each year I've noticed a little gap widening between them and me...a bit more water for me, a wider swath of freedom for them, I guess.


Monday changed all that.  I found myself doing arm and leg circles against the wall at the 4-foot ladder, surrounded by water and other people's children.  Mine had hugged and splashed and front-flipped with goggles for a few brief moments, then vanished to the outer edges of my periphery.  This changes everything, I thought.  I'm never going back from this. 


It is a weird moment for my mom brain to compute.  I am tearing up a bit, but I also feel that stretch for independence for myself every now and then.  Even if I'm not ready for it, obviously it's here.  Well, obvious in that painful, I just figured it out because all the other moms are giving me "that look" from above their magazines in their lounge chairs.  I do have Cosmo in my bag...

Summer, Lovin'

This summer has been that classic, hot, at-the-pool-and-lake every day kinda summer!  It was my plan all along, you see.  I'm glad the weather cooperated with me!  This year the kids are four and five, and the perfect ages to go to our community pool for swimming lessons and fab afternoons with mama, instead of the kiddie pool in our back yard.  Darby will start kindergarten in just a couple weeks; my mental breakdown has already commenced.

I know we are tucked into this gentle valley of easy childhood comfort, and I don't want to miss any moment of it.  I know she will adore school and it will be an amazing gift being able to watch her blossom.  But I am already missing our days at home together.  Gabe will still be at home with me, which will be a wonderful experience for the two of us.  Then next year at this time, I will be sending my last babe off to school, as well.

Until that moment of true change arrives in our daily lives, I will slurp up all of this extra time and love that's floating around my house.  It's really all I can do, now.

Fabulous Five

My darling diva just turned five years old on Sunday.  She was a real champ, with only a few tiny meltdowns. (It's a lot of work being on all day!)   The sweetest thing she did was early in the day, before the rest of the fest started..."Mama," she said walking closer to me, "do I look, uh, bigger to you now that I'm five?"  I told her that, in fact, she did look bigger to me.  It's rather bittersweet that she gets bigger, almost by the day.  Or by the hour, sometimes.  Gabe will be four in February, I feel myself clinging more and more.  Yikes, they made this mama a little on the emotional side, right?!

Cheers to you, moms!
L