Time In a Bottle

When I first started blogging, I always wondered why some of my most favorite bloggers seemed to be going really strong, writing every day, cracking me up with their hilarious stories of toddler mayhem and baby poop and kindergarten capers, and then, suddenly, poof, they disappeared never to be heard from again.

I totally get it now.

Our kids, the ones that provide endless blogging fodder, grow up. Mine are only nine and seven and, still, it seems like I have less and less to write about. Or, at the least, less and less time to do it.

Garrett is at that really awkward in between stage of not a little kid, not a teenager. I noticed this, in particular, on Easter Sunday. We gathered with friends and, at one point, Matthew was outside playing with a toddler and Garrett was sitting at the table, trying to fit in. I remember that feeling so well. I was the oldest of my all my cousins, the first born grandchild on both sides. I can remember my brother and my toddler cousins running around, playing, and laughing. I felt too old for them. And too young to be at the table.

I saw that in my son.

How is he suddenly too old to be playing with the toddlers?

This is why blogging slows.

Because there are no longer stories of poop being found in weird places. There are no longer ridiculous airplane capers or road trip mishaps due, solely, to the fact that tiny people are involved. Instead, we're watching them grow up at an alarming and avalanche like pace. We're running them in forty-five different directions for that practice or this activity or that club or this appointment.

I used to think the long days of babyhood and toddler time would never end. It's not that I wanted them to, it's just that it certainly did feel exhausting. "Just another hour until naptime..." I would think. And then, suddenly, they were both in school all day and our life revolved around spelling tests and math concepts and baseball practice and church activities.

And so I sit down to write and all I can think about is how short my time is with them. I remember their itty bitty feet and their chubby baby hands. I think of how fast it all goes and I realize that I have nothing in particular to say. Time is flying and I cannot catch it in a bottle, much less pin it to paper.