We are all entitled to the blues, now and then, right?
Seems like the older I get, the more nostalgic I become. In bygone years, the advent of Autumn was a time to celebrate. Football was back. Cooler weather was on the horizon. Thanksgiving and Christmas were just around the corner.
All of this, of course, still applies. Football, chilly weather, and the holidays haven't gone anywhere. What has happened is my kids are getting older, and there has been a change in my family dynamics, which I won't get into.
I remember holding my oldest on the bed almost 16 years ago in Atlanta, pondering the inevitability of his growing up, even though he was just a few weeks old at the time. Call it a fatalistic streak in me.
Wasn't it just a few years ago I had a soon-to-be-born child, and five others, the oldest just out of elementary school, along with two pre-school age kids? Now, there are two high schoolers, one middle schooler, two elementary schoolers, and the 'baby,' who will be ready for pre-k before we know it.
The silver lining on this wistful Labor Day is that the kids are all wonderful, a total blessing, and I am so proud of them. My oldest, Bryan, has a delightful, infectious (but not threatening) sense of humor that had his friends rolling in the aisles on a recent church trip. At 15, an age when many teens are yearning to explore the world with their friends, he is content to spend weekends with his family, which thrills me and his mother to no end.
Rebecca my oldest daughter, is 14, a model child and an academic whiz-kid, recently landing a scholarship at a local private school. She has an insatiable appetite for the written word, devouring 500-page novels and books in a day and a half. Harry Potter? She's read every volume -- no joking -- a dozen or so times. Trust me, it's possible.
My "middle child," Kitty, no longer technically in the middle, is a complete and wonderful drama queen, a role she relishes in and outside the theater. Inside her brash demeanor, though, is a sweetheart of a child, a real "Daddy's Girl."
My youngest son, Panyue, is an absolute joy, lighting up my day every time he runs towards my car, his face beaming with excitement, his blanky thrown over his shoulder, bouncing as he runs. My penultimate daughter, Grace, seems quiet and shy to the world, but is a social animal with family and those she knows well.
Hayden, my youngest, is an audacious, fiesty 2-year-old who will have no problems adjusting socially to any situation, after growing up as the youngest in this family. What a blessing she is.
And they all continue to grow, ineluctably, on this Labor Day 2010.
Keep your kids tight, folks. Love 'em while you have 'em. Leave yourself with no regrets.
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