Circle of Life

This week has been filled with so many ups and downs since Saturday and its only Wednesday!! Life can be so very strange! Saturday we learned good friends of ours had lost thier mother/mother-in-law. Very suddenly! Then the newest addition to our very larger immediate family was born on Monday--beautiful little girl! This up and down with births and death just reminds me how quickly life goes and how very much we are a "circle" of life.

As we visited our newest family member, the adults were all "gaga" if you will about the sweet, tiny, innocent little lady who had just come into the world. Everyone oohing and aahing and wanting to hold this precious little life! Totall normal for us adults, but my children, while happy their cousin was here, just weren't really into the whole "new baby" thing! I could tell that my youngest was beginning to feel the effects of no longer being the youngest in the family.

As we drove it occurred to me that although I love the baby stage, the newborn smell--I was in fact grateful to have had that stage three times, but now I was loving the stage my children were in. I turned around and told my children how much I loved the stage that they were in where we could communicate, they were more independent and were exploring the world around them. My youngest seems to enjoy hearing this most of all!

That night as I talked with each one before bed, my youngest and I talked about all the growth she has had and how much she is learning now that she is in kindergarten. She and I talked about how awesome it that she will be the older one that will be able to play with her new cousin and teach her all about itty bitty baby and barbies!

My middle child, my "old soul" child who has so much insight and is wise beyong her years, said to me "mommy, I wish we could stay this age forever, you at 37 and me at 7 years old. We won't grow and will be together for always." I looked at her with her beautiful big eyes, and said "I know, but we can't, all we can do is enjoy our time and our ages right now, and look forward to all that we have ahead of us. She shook her head and sweetly hugged me, telling me she loves me. Violet amazes me, her kindness, her loving nature, and her intuitiveness as she seems to know that time is fleeting and we are all born, we grow, we age, we live, and we die....

My oldest of course is 10 and could care less at this moment about another girl cousin and how that plays into his life--is thinks its great, but hey we got our ipod touch and more on our mind, like what book to read next for his golden sowers,and who he will hang out with after school the next day!

As for me, I am deeply touched my my middle childs words. I am constantly reminded how very quickly it all comes and goes, faster and faster as we get older. Like the blowing of the wind, the seasons changing, our memories growing, each event in our lives shaping who we are....remembering as a young child how we wanted to be bigger, older, more free....can't wait to be 5, to be 10, to be 16, to be 21.....and then you are, and by the time you are in your thirties you realize why when you were younger so many people would say "what I wouldn't give to be 5 or 16 or 21 again"...

Time--we wish it away, and we wish for more of it...the circle of life as it comes and goes. Hoping we can become the people we want to be; Hoping we will shape our childrens lives to be better than our own; Hoping we make a difference; Hoping in the end to be remembered...

Tonight we say goodbye to someone we knew, we will watch as our friends mourn the loss of a mother/mother-in-law. We will rejoice in the pictures of our new niece and her "firsts" to come. The Circle of life continuing on its course, and how quickly it makes its rounds....