Can I hold you one more time?

January 2007 - first day of high school

A milestone is a stage in your life that marks the completion of a phase. It’s a high level event and it could be in your career, spiritual or love life, or it could just be a physical or emotional development you have reached.

When you have a baby you know that any baby book you pick up is FULL of milestones that parents look forward to and if you don’t follow them from a book then you spend your life comparing your children with every other child.  And I don’t mean that in a bad way it’s just the way life is, life revolves around them for a few years and we eat drink and sleep children.  Talk about them all the time even when it is not appropriate somehow they always pop up into the conversation.  Then for some time you stop anticipating those milestones. Hey they can walk and have said so many words and have all their teeth that you kind of forget about them for a while and you just wish they’d hurry up and grow up!

From growing pains to big feet to voice changes and hair on the face it all happened in a blink of an eye. When they reach their teens they become more independent, they know everything, mood swings set in (oh yes boys have them big time). And they form some kind of weird identity that you are not quite sure you understand or like.  They want a lock in their bedroom door, all of a sudden they develop a taste for some horrible music and they can and do choose their own clothes. They express their feelings, tell you when they are angry and give you opinions you don’t like all the time ... pfft as if I was ever allowed to have an opinion when I was a kid!

Milestones this year ... they are too many and too close.

The first day of high school is so close to the last day that it’s scary!

Honestly where did these last five years go?

I blinked and already we have reached that ONE scary milestone in life – Moo has officially finished school! Matric final exams start this coming Monday and then he is going out into the real world.

October 2011 - last day of high school

I’m writing this and my eyes can’t hold back the tears anymore, they are rolling down my cheeks and I ask you my child –
“Can I hold you one more time before you grow, can I do your tie again?  Let me put toys in your bath tonight and comb your hair one last time.  Let me help you with your homework....tell me about your day and hug me again around my waist.
I'll tell you your favorite story tonight and fall asleep in your bed.
I want to be a part of every little thing you do. 
Can I hold you one more time?”

What an emotional milestone we have reached in our lives, my hubby and I, he seems to be coping with it all and I am falling apart. I know, I know this is all part of life and I will be smiling again soon, but today I want to be sad just because I can.  

Tell me my child can I hold you one more time before you grow?