Saturday, October 26, 2013
You're Gonna Miss This
Well, it happened again.No matter how hard I try to control myself, I fail. It doesn't matter if I am driving home from work, riding on the back of the motorcycle, or jogging with my iPod. If I hear "You're Gonna Miss This" byTrace Adkins or "It Won't be Like This for Long" by Darius Rucker, I end up in tears, especially if I try to sing along. When my kids were young and I was in the throws of terrible twos or spending entire Saturdays at wrestling tournaments full of screaming kids, I didn't feel like I was "gonna miss this." Sometimes I feel bad that I didn't cherish every moment with my kids when they were young. More than once I stood at the check out line with a screaming child and a cart full of groceries thinking "Just take me now Lord" rather than "It won't be like this for long." I don't beat myself up over it. That's just the way parenting goes. When we are there, we don't always say "Hey, I'm gonna miss this." But something happens to me when I hear certain lines in those songs. I'm taken back to dropping a crying child off at daycare and an angry teenager telling me that I have no idea how he feels. But the line that really gets me every time I hear it is in the Trace Adkins song where the mom is apologizing to the plumber for her screaming kids and he says something like, "I have two babies of my own...ones twenty-six, ones twenty-three." I literally choke on the words every single time I try to sing them. In fact, I have a lump in my throat as I type this. My kids aren't out of the house yet, but they are independent young men who don't depend on me for much of anything anymore. I look at the pictures of them as little boys and wonder why it went by so fast. I hear screaming kids in the store and look at another middle aged mom and we smile at each other because we too had been there. The other night Tom and I were driving in the rain to watch Sammy play football. I was grumbling about having to sit in the stands and be cold and wet for two hours. And suddenly I remembered that it's his junior year. After next fall there won't be anymore football games, rain or shine. And I'm gonna miss this.
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I just wrote a comment, and it was pretty lengthy, somehow it got lost, so in a nutshell I will try to post it again
ReplyDeleteI just want to start off by saying that I can totally relate to your posts.
I love reading your stories. they are real,
Everything we do in life is like "trial & error", and I also think that the best advice we can get in certain circumstances is the advice from people who "have been there and/or done that"
I am a mother of 5 wonderful children (Kyle, 21, Cory & Cody, 20, Kurt, 16, and Leah, 15)
I love your blog and I can relate to it "you're gonna miss this"
I have been going to NORTHMEN FOOTBALL GAMES since 2006, and next year is Kurt's last season in High School Football. It will be so hard for me, because I was that mom that ran along the fence at the games following each play as the ball made it down the field, cheering on the team, but mostly for my son, all 4 boys have played football.
When I am on FB and some of my friends are becoming mothers and they say stuff like, "oh my goodness, my baby is getting big so fast, he is already a month old" I follow up with a comment everytime, "you need to cherish every moment with your baby, because before you know it they too will be graduating"
I recently had a baby shower at my house for a friend, one of the little things they had us do was fill out a little card for a "BUCKET LIST" for the new mommy. we had to write some advice for her .mine to her was to cherish EVERYTHING, no matter how stupid you think it is, write it down, because you will later on look back and wish you had wrote down "baby's first this, or baby's first that"
I can't tell you how many times I have talked about baby stories and forgot exact dates or ages my kids did something. I'm always "guesstimating", and to me that is frustrating. Thanks for letting me share some stories.
Thank you Tammy! I appreciate all feedback that I get. A year or so ago I read a column by a woman who was in the throws of young children and felt terrible about not cherishing every moment. Honestly, there are some of those moments I'd rather not relive. But I do know as you do too, how incredibly fast it all goes. I wish I could hold my little boys hands and kiss the tops of their little heads again.I want to read them books again and listen to their little voices sing along with the car radio. I just want to remind parents of young children that it's OK to be frustrated during the frustrating times, but don't wish it away, because before you know it, it's gone. Maybe that's why God gives us grandchildren (when the time is right, of course!). Thanks again for your comment. ")
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