Speed up, slow down

Parenting time, is different than normal time.

You know how the expression goes, "the hours drag, but the days fly." It's true, and I should know.

When I met my DH all those years ago, my prospective stepchildren were 4 and 6 years old. On Monday my NINETEEN, yes that's right NINETEEN year old step daughter will come to visit! Because the early years were so difficult with the usual hostilities between exes, it was easy to wish the years away. My stepchildren live in Canada with their mum (mom?), and we moved there for several years to be closer to them, all the while knowing that we would eventually come back to Australia. I'm sure I wished the time away moreso than my DH - for much of it, I was incredibly homesick. And when we had our own child together - with no other family support, we decided it was time to come home.

And now, almost five years on, and another two children, I just can't slow the time down no matter how hard I try. To be sure, there are days that by 7.00 am I am yelling the house down and wishing I could fast forward to the end of the day...but moreso I'd rather be able to pause here and there (a rewind function would be nice when you need to do-over a day) because I know that my children are growing up altogether too fast.

I'm almost positive that these preschool days are the longest. Next year my son (and our family) will be consumed by a first year of school, and the year after the middle will probably go too. After that we will be blessed with (hopefully) a long calm before the storm of adolescence...and I know that time is going to go so darn quick.

Maybe it's wrong to map it all out, and look at it this way - but rest assured, the primary school years, these are the gravy days. The time when your kids can do so much for themselves, but still essentially need you on a day to day basis - and more importantly, still think you're pretty darn wonderful for the most part. And you know, good times go faster...don't they?

So I'm getting my head around this stuff now. Preparing myself if you will. One day, I know I will sit back and wish I could rewind back to this time. The time before it got really really good, but also, when time travelled way too quickly.