The Best Years

I was just cruising Helen to school, thinking about how well our first cross country meet went, when it occurred to me that these are possibly the best years of my life.  Everyone says college is the best time of your life, but I have to disagree.  I am old enough now to see how much I didn't know back when I thought I had life all figured out, and I am content to live out my life learning the lessons God has for me, and letting my neighbor's learn their lessons without my helpful suggestions.  I don't need to fix the world anymore, I am content to fix dinner.

I'm out of the baby years, which for me is a happy thing.  I loved my babies, but I really love my kids.  I had to laugh the other day when I thought about how many years I spent trying to get my kids to eat their dinner, and now I am trying to get them to quit eating me out of house and home.  If only I had saved my grocery money while they weren't eating for the years when they wouldn't stop.  These days they are fun to talk to.  They have really good questions, and observations.  They can do many of the things I love to do with me, which is very good since I am getting too old to carry people up mountains.  I love to watch them grow and conquer challenges.  They are fun to hang out with, do homework with, go to cross country meets with, bicycle with, and go to school with.  I love being around their friends.  And they are all still at home for a few very short years.  I can see that once they start leaving home my days will look very different.

I'm trying to stop and smell the joy of these years before they move on, and I find myself wishing they had been longer.  I am spending as much time as I can with them at school helping in any way they will let me.  I don't want to let my expectations for "family life" ruin the fun of being with them doing what they love to do.  It's okay to eat a little later, and maybe not with everyone around the table every night.  We still enjoy hearing about each other's days at second dinner. My little ones probably stay up too late, but the family dynamic has changed since we all went to bed at 8.  I pointed out to Helen that she is my last kindergartner.  My last required mid-day trip to school.  My last walk through the arboretum.  My last trip to the fair with little people in plaid.  I hope I will get to make the trip as a grandma, but that is a long shot.  These breezy September afternoons will not always be filled with runners breathing heavily as they struggle up hills, but that is what I will always think of.  The smell of dried weeds, watermelon, and sweaty high schoolers will bring me back to these glorious afternoons.  I know that the days ahead will have new glories of their own, and I am grateful for every minute of it.

I remember well the difficult years, and they were difficult.  They were glorious in their own way, but I found them to be tough.  When all the children were little, and needed constant supervision, I was sure I would not be able to wait for them to get out of the house.  Now that they are growing up, maturing, bearing fruit in their little lives, I wish I could have them stick around a little longer.  My oldest girls are getting busy with social lives, jobs, school, future planning, all the things they should be involved in.  It is overwhelmingly joyful to see it all happening.  It is the culmination of years of hard work and heavy praying.  Today I am just so thankful for this work, and all the joy that comes with it.

1027-1038

Amber waves of grain, or yellow if you prefer

Giggly girls

Washing machines

Mums

The sound of grasshoppers whizzing through the dry grass

Teaching PE

Paint

The smell of fresh roasted coffee

Crock pots

Clean laundry piled on beds waiting for children

Bind weed blossoms

Fairs