My kids have started back to school for the 2014-2015 school year. I'm not sure how it happened, or when it happened, but my kids are no longer "children", they are pre-teens. Wasn't it just yesterday I was on the floor with them reading "Pat the Bunny", "Goodnight Moon", or one of the many wonderful books by Sandra Boynton for hours at a time? Our parents told us to enjoy every minute with our babies because in the blink of an eye, they'd be in middle school, high school, and then college. In another blink, they'd be getting married and having babies of their own.
When my husband and I got married, my mother requested a special song be played at our ceremony. The song was from "Fiddler on the Roof" and is titled "Sunrise, Sunset". The lyrics express perfectly how I'm feeling.
"Is this the little girl I carried?
Is this the little boy at play?
I don't remember growing older
When did they?
When did she get to be a beauty?
When did he grow to be so tall?
Wasn't it yesterday
When they were small?
Sunrise, sunset
Sunrise, sunset
Swiftly flow the days
Seedlings turn overnight to sunflowers
Blossoming even as we gaze."
I still instinctively look at my shoulder before I leave my house to see if I have baby food or drool which needs to be wiped off. When I take both kids shopping for clothes, I have to remind myself to go to the teen/preteen area and not the children's department.
My daughter used to lock her tiny little arms around my thigh whenever we went anywhere because she was so shy and scared. Now she runs with carefree abandon with her friends and throws back a "See ya later, Mom!" along with a smile. When did her wings of independence begin to spread?
My son loved to hold my index finger. Even as a toddler he was so outgoing and energetic. There were many times when I thought he'd dislocate my finger in his excitement to reach whatever it was he had his sites aimed for. These days I get a wave of his hand and a "Later! Love ya!" as he hops out of the car in the school drop-off line.
As I think back, the time elapsed from when they were just born to now feels like a few short weeks. What happened which caused this quick jump in age? As much as I would like to believe it was time travel, or even a time warp, I know that isn't the culprit. I think what happened was exactly what our parents told us would happen. We blinked.
Written by Christie Bielss
Went and ate lunch with my Dad today. As my Dad was paying cash for his meal, he gave the young lady enough so that instead of getting a bunch of $1 bills, he'd get a $10 - and jokingly asked her if she could figure out the change without the aid of the computer. With a good sense of humor, she smiled and said she was in college for a teaching degree for 4th-8th Grade Math/Science.
Later, after we'd finished eating our lunch, she stopped by to check on us. We were enjoying our conversation with her when I asked what she thought her most difficult subject currently was. She said it was writing, not because it was difficult for her to write, but because her college professor was a bit on the "odd side".
That took me back to the one semester I spent at the University of North Texas and had the craziest World Government professor I'd ever experienced. Remember the Rodney Dangerfield movie "Back to School" where the plot centers around Rodney returning to college with his son to complete his degree and he has Sam Kinison as one of his professors.
Probably one of the most memorable parts of that movie is where Sam is yelling at Rodney "SAAAAYYY ITTTTT!!!!". That was my professor at UNT. Our World Government class consisted of learning about Vietnam, and only Vietnam. He was a veteran of the war and he told us with great theatrical presentation how "bombs were going off all around us! KA-BOOM!!!! And then the choppers and bombers would come in just above your head shooting their guns BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM!, and you'd be running trying to avoid getting hit but then 10 feet over someone would hit a boobie trap and KA-BOOOOM! PEOPLE, DIRT, SHRUBS AND ALL SORTS OF CRUD WOULD BE FLYING EVERYWHERE!". The longer he'd talk, the more you could tell he was going into a full flashback. And heaven forbid if he asked you a question and your answer wasn't immediate!
He traumatized a lot of young college students as he'd start softly and build in crescendo until he was screaming at the top of his lungs "Say the answer. You know the answer........ We've COVERED the answer...... Say the ANSWER! YOU CAN SAY IT! JUST SAAAAYYYYY ITTTTT!!!!". If you got the answer right, he immediately calmed down and was back to a normal person. If you didn't, he'd start throwing stuff around and pick someone else to answer the question.
Not sure I learned much in that class but as long as I wasn't in the hot seat, it was very entertaining. To this very day, when I watch the movie "Back to School", I laugh until I cry at that part...........probably due to my own PTSD flashback.........
by: Christie Bielss
