Where Has All The Time Gone?

This is probably an overused axiom but I’m going to once again state it; where has the time gone?”

The time I’m referring to is the progression of my daughter who I affectionately refer to as my little girl and always will, by the way. It seems like yesterday that she was spitting up down my back as I sauntered through a Lowes Home Improvement center completely oblivious of this fact. In fact I remember her first impression on this world…..as they opened the curtain to the nursery there was my little girl on her side, butt facing us all and having what I have to believe is the most very satisfying first bowel movement outside the womb. I can only think the little one is saying, “Man I’ve had to do that for nine months!”

I remember her first bike. It was a pink Schwinn Tigress I believe it was called. It had the training wheels and the whole nine yards and I remember the thrill of seeing her ride this bike.

You see, children are just a series of thrills to behold throughout their early years. The first step, the first word (intelligible), the first solid food, the first school, their first bed and the list goes on and on. The funny thing is my daughter is now 22 going on 23 and she still finds ways to thrill me. Now she is faced with adult pressures and adult stresses and she seems to come through pretty well, finances not withstanding. She is faced with her own health care and figuring out if she gets vision on her health care. President Obama will be helping her with that soon enough.

I remember a year ago helping her find her first apartment. It was quite an ordeal and not without debates but all in all it went pretty well and she just had her first lease renewal came her first rent increase….not such a thrill for her but indeed a lesson in life.

Children are a kind of walking legacy to their parents. All the toil and long nights and early mornings and all the battle wounds to cure along with all the science projects (don’t get me started on the submarine!) and all the term papers and all the tutoring and poking and prodding to try and make her do her best. It comes to fruition before you even know it has passed. And then you say to yourself; where has the time gone?

Now it’s Grandchildren to sort of fill the childless void although your children never REALLY leave home as we are finding out. I’m not sure what the chapters in the next 20 or 30 years will hold but there is indeed one thing I do know….in 30 years I will be saying; where has the time gone?