Slow Down the Hands (or Feet) of Time

I usually write about my children.  They provide endless material.  I share all the frenzied details of our hours together, and most of it is wildly funny, even though I am usually in the center of it, typically rubbing my face…sorta pulling my cheeks down with my fingers, so you can see the red under my bottom eyelids…slowly moaning things out loud like, “Wowwwwwww,” not to be confused with “Owwwww,” which is also muttered, but usually in a slightly higher pitch and when I am pulling my hair UP and OUT.  You see the difference?  Yes.  You would know it if you saw it.

And though it causes me to contort my face and pull on/out my own hair, raising kids is still very funny.  Even when I am flat on my face surrounded by strange and odoriferous kid wreckage, I am usually laughing.  I mean, I might cry simultaneously, and I might look totally nuts…because I almost am…but – I am digressing – the point is…it is still funny, these kids. 

These kids don’t even try to be funny – they are just real.  They are bold and honest, in a recognizable way.  We can all identify with what my kids do.  We would do this stuff – if we could.  I mean, you don’t want YOUR kids to do this stuff, but you do totally want other people’s kids to do this funny stuff, and – hey – that is why you have me.  My kids DO this stuff, and I barely try to stop them.  I am usually encouraging them in a strange way…almost subliminally or something.  It is like my words are saying, “Stop that – it is naughty.  Bad.  Bad.”  But, my eyes are saying, “Oh my GOODNESS…that is so stinking funny…do it again.”

But, we have to exercise self control, we parents.  We cannot allow too much of this funny stuff.  You know, we have to act all disappointed and serious sometimes.  But, sometimes, my kids just let it fly, and if it weren't for them, when would I ever get to let it fly?  I get to get all up-in-it, flop around on the floor and say crazy stuff, and then I can act completely disturbed by it and blame it on them.  Say things like, “Look what you made me DO,” as I dust myself off and act like it was awful.  And, even when I don’t get a supporting role in the mayhem, it is fun to watch kids being kids…even if it is messy, and even if I am the one to pick it up because even when they pick it up it is not picked up.

But, inside of the messy, ordinary events of any given day, and along with all the laughing that parenting promises, there exists, too, the painful reality that another day has passed. 

(What…we were just laughing, right?  And now, NOW…I am getting all melancholy on you?  I can turn on a dime.  THEY did this to me.)

But, seriously, I have never, and I mean NEVER cared about a day passing until I had children.  In my twenties, when I worked a full-time job, I was never seen walking out of my office, dragging my feet, “Darn.  It’s over.”  Then, as a teacher, at 3 pm, I never pounded my fist on my desk, bemoaning “Whyyyyy….WHY did the children go HOME?”

Nope.  I was always glad to make the hours pass.  I killed a lot of time. 

But, in come my children.  Kids show us how fast our life is going by.  We can see it through them. 

I mean, my foot hasn’t grown since I was in high school…well, unless you count that (throat clear) “temporary” enlargement of my – um – big toe during and after pregnancy, but – I mean – that doesn't count, and it is going to go away, soon.

But my kids are growing every day – their feet are like scary stretching tree branches in a horror movie – just gnarly and unfolding and wrapping around things.  Seriously, I am so glad it is summer because everyone is going barefoot.  I’m sick of trying to shove those things into shoes.  Done.  Bam.  Barefoot.

Kids change rapidly, and we think we are staying the same?  No.  We are aging right along with them.  I looked in the mirror the other day and saw the future.  Of course, I slapped a pound of concealer on the future and took one of the light bulbs out of the bathroom mirror’s light fixture, but – I saw it.  I saw my older face.  It spoke to me like Yoda.  It said, “Children need you,” and I didn't know if that meant I needed the children or the children needed me, so I just went running out of there.

But, I wouldn't trade what the older face knows for the younger version of me.  For one, I know to slow down and enjoy each day, even the really sucky days when I look like a giant Yoda.  I know to enjoy even the imperfections inside of the day because that is when I am learning the most.  My kids are here with me, inside these moments, beating me to heck and back, but polishing me all the while.  God has given my children this job.  They have been assigned my sanctification, and since I was such a wretch at one point in my life – these children are BUSY.  This – right now – is the best chance I have at becoming a better person. 

I mentioned to my husband that our homeschooled kids have no idea what it is like to sit in a class and wish the hour away.  They have no idea what it means to watch a clock or wish something was over.  They have never spent a day in bored agony.  In their own opinion, they have not wasted much of their own time.  I hope this will continue for them.  I hope they will never repeatedly find themselves in a situation where they are clockwatching and/or killing time, wishing they were elsewhere.  I hope - in some way - their life will feel longer, fuller...because they weren't always trying to push it away.  I hope they will continue for the rest of their lives to be fully present in their God-given moments, and I hope they will always operate with honesty, with realness, with boldness, and with a well-developed sense of fun.  I hope they will remember how we have laughed.  I hope they will come visit me in the home.  I hope their feet will stop growing soon, and I hope the girls’ feet will grow to be my exact size.