They Grow Up So Fast!
Soon after my first child was born, an aunt of mine asked me when I was planning to go back to work. I wasn’t sure at the time, but she volunteered her opinion that I could go back when my daughter was in kindergarten. “They grow up so fast,” she continued. This came as a shocker to me because it seemed so far off. Five years at home? Certainly I would go back to work before that time, I thought, and I was correct.
But as every mother of grown children knows, our kids do grow up so fast. My three children are grown and our youngest has been offered her first job, leaving my husband and me free for a new adventure. This time we are planning a move. Not just any move, but a transcontinental move and away from our children. This kind of makes me feel sentimental. Just yesterday I was organizing boxes in the cellar and found treasure troves of old school notebooks, paintings, I Love You cards, photos, awards, dolls, Legos and kids’ clothes I haven’t been able to part with.
I opened a mysterious envelope and found my son’s pacifier, or Nuggi, one of the many he adored over his early years. Another small box sheltered a lock of blond curly hair that once graced his adorable face. His hair is dark brown now. Then there was Buzz Lightyear, escaped from the Toy Story films (who once scared me to death when I accidentally bumped him some years back, and he proclaimed, “To infinity and beyond!”), a bit dusty, but still brave and bold. Oh, and I found a stiff pair of those iconic Swiss Tiger Finkli (tiger-printed Mary Jane slippers) that my youngest daughter wore until her feet grew out of them. Those little feet grew and grew and grew until she reached size 41 – bigger than my own shoe size!
Numerous baby teeth are crowded into little wooden cubes labeled Milchzähne (“milk teeth”). What will my children do with these things? They will soon inherit such sentimentalities: I am not planning on taking them overseas with me. What a better time than now to bestow these keepsakes upon them? Kids do grow quickly, and up until now, our family life generally moved on without time for reminiscing or maudlin moments. The time has come for me to think about posterity.
Kids grow physically and emotionally at astounding rates, especially when you aren’t paying attention. Take, for example, my oldest daughter’s acceptance, at age three, that her beloved blanket was gone: we had accidentally left the last surviving quarter of the ragged thing in a junk shop in Seattle, and she took it quite well. One day a blanket addict, the next day not. It was just gone, and she had to grow up. The first few nights were probably rough, but she grew up and faced the world anyway. Same for my son, who worshipped the Nuggi. I still can see that little guy with two of them, one in his mouth and one in his hand, but suddenly one day he accepted that the broken and slimy thing was simply unhealthy and moved on with his life.
My youngest child did not have a blanket or Nuggi, but she was quick with the scissors and did need some time to grow back her hair after she chopped off some at the top and in the back. She was recently looking at some old pictures as I organized the boxes, and she found a shot of her during what we call her Stump Era, when we had had to do some pretty quick thinking about how to cover up her hairdo disaster. I did cry a tear when she was a prepubescent and gave away her Barbie dolls to a neighbor child. Growing out of the Barbie scene seemed more painful for me than for her!
Still reminiscing, I realize that by the time my second and third children were born I began to understand the expression, “They grow so fast.” Arriving in Switzerland without any German and expecting a child, I had more time to spend with my daughter and to adjust to my new life. At first I took my new situation hard. I wished for a job, any job! But the language barrier and the school schedule wouldn’t allow it. Looking back, I am so glad that I did have the time to enjoy with my child and to adjust to our growing family and learn some German. I look at the growth lines we still have sketched onto the closet door, and I see how fast the children did indeed grow, and at what point they stopped growing physically.
It seems that we as mothers also grow. As a middle-aged mom, I have grown a bit around the waist, for sure. But I have also grown in knowledge that things are not always as they seem, and that what seems like a major problem at first will probably work out in the end. We begin to realize what is really important, and we learn to make the best use of the luxury of time.
Some years later, I did go back to work, and it really didn’t seem like such a gap after all. And going through the boxes now makes me remember how much fun we have had. My aunt was right all along. They do grow so fast!
By Mary Bider
Mary has three grown children. She has lived in Switzerland for 20 years, but is heading home, with mixed feelings, to her native U.S. She will miss the land and the people of Switzerland, her family here and her friends.
Illustration by Albina Nogueira
Albina Nogueira has been a primary school teacher since 1992, and a writer and illustrator since 2006. She currently lives in Switzerland, but her homeland is Portugal. She is also the author of Letters to Grandparents and Hairdresser. To find out more, like her on Facebook or see her books in Amazon.
