Time

Today is the day Brian assembles Mackenzie's new Pottery Barn bed.  Today is the first day of the end of babyhood at our house.  I cry as I type that.  Time is so weird.  It goes so fast and so slowly at the same time.  Brian and I worked for 3 years to have these girls and suffered through things that made time go incredibly slow.  Now, I am sharing a table with an almost seven year old girl who is swimming laps across a pool and who now reads to me in the car. How does it happen so fast? 

I feel happy and sad.  Mackenzie has come a really long way.  We have a long way to go, but I see the growth.  She is the child who at her one year doctor visit was told that she may never walk.  When a parent hears the words "brain injury"  time stops.  When it begins to tick again it whooshes by as you imagine all of the terrible things she will encounter because "normal" is not going to be possible.  Then when you begin to investigate the possibilities you find that it won't be easy...but it will be possible.  By that time...a year has flown by in a blur.  The exhaustion of scrambling around with different therapists and neurologists such really wears on you and almost steals time from enjoying your child.

Some of my time with Mackenzie has been spent wishing it away.  Wishing that a particular phase would be over.  I am in one of those phases right now.  Her behavior is very bad at home and is taxing on all of us.  There is a lot of stress in our home...along with a lot of love and giggles too.  It is hard to balance- so I wish it away.  And then BOOM...the time is gone and now she is getting a big girl bed and babyhood is over.  

I am trying to live for the moments between the storms here.  There are many more calm moments now than there were before.  I think each year she grows a little bit more and things get easier (and harder) in their own way.  She used to hit her head on the ground and now she stands on the dinner table and throws things at the TV.  I will think twice before I shake my head at a mother who has unruly children...and I urge you not to as well.  She may be trying with all her might to live a normal life with a spirited child.  I am that mom.

Now, I have wasted 10 minutes of your time.  The time that is so precious and that we waste doing silly things like folding laundry and washing toilets :).  I encourage all of us to put away our laptops and play Candyland more.  Turn off the TV and listen to your kids before they don't want to talk anymore.  Just yesterday I was explaining to Fiona that one day she isn't going to want me to hug and kiss her at school. So, in between time-outs I will kiss and hug them as much as I can before time passes and I am totally uncool.