Everyone is getting older

My husband is a pretty straight laced guy - but when we met, he rode a motorcycle, wore a leather jacket and smoked cloves on the weekend.

Then we grew up a little and he traded in riding the bike for driving a car the was safe and could fit car seats. Hung up the leather jacket for a Carhartt. And ended up with a wicked case of upper respiratory infection and quit smoking a few months before I found out I was pregnant with our first daughter. 

He talked about getting the bike out now that the weather is getting consistently nice and I have to wonder how much longer we have to feel young.

I'm not afraid of getting older - my age isn't what scares me, isn't what makes my heart stop beating for a handful of seconds at a time - it's the fact that as I get older ... so does everyone else.

Am I really gonna miss this?

There are some pretty ridiculous things that get me riled up. The kids mixing Play-Doh colors, people putting ketchup on good steak ... and then the giant population of parents who forgot just how much it sucks to have at least two headstrong little people under their care. The last one is a doozy and it's been on my mind for a while. This post has been coming for weeks. This has been milling around in my brain since before I wrote this. And this one, too.

I hear way too often how much I'm going to miss it, or some version of that statement ... and honestly? Am I going to miss the screaming and fighting? The screeching for no reason? Scolding them for sitting too close to the TV? Fighting at bedtime because they don't want to sleep?

No.

Not at all.
 
In fact, I want people to stop making parents of young children believe these are things that will be missed by making overarching statements like, "It's hard right now, but one day you'll look back and really miss these moments." I'll miss it like that migraine I had in college that landed me in my bed for 24 hours, dry heaving and unable to peek out from under the covers.

In the moment ... but not really

I'm really bad about writing things in the moment. You know, something spectacular happens and then I don't write about it right away and two days later I try to ... and it all sounds like shit. This is because of my kids. I blame them. They're so needy and I, like, never get time to do things I want to do like pour out my soul in one shot.

So, jump into my time machine. I'm taking you back to Tuesday Nov. 12, 2013. Are you there? Good. Because this is going to be written like it all happened today.

*que funky time machine wavy mirage visual effects*