My James is going to be 4 in one week. I love him too much and don't want to let him grow up.
Last week Dave was out of town and I wrote these thoughts down in an email to him:
"For some reason, the solitude I've had this week has allowed me to somewhat calm down. I am always running and dealing with things...taking kids here and there, involved with park days, swim lessons, summer camps, etc. So this week we have had nothing and my phone has barely rung and it forced me to slow down. So today I reflected and just went with the flow of the kids. It was nice. I got to just be with them and I especially took notice of James who so often gets lost in the talking of Jonny and the physical demands of Isaac. I had fun discovering with him how a model train goes around a track at the museum today. I watched him get excitedly scared while watching the big crocodile-looking animal in the Land Before Time as I folded laundry. He would gasp, cover his mouth and squeal right before he'd look at me and say, "I'm not scared, Mom." And I got to play ice hockey with him and shoot dinosaurs with him at Chuckey Cheese. He beat me at ice hockey and his delight was and always is so endearing. I saw him jump around inside the car as we were trying to go somewhere and as my impatience started getting the best of me, I noticed that he wasn't just jumping around. He was doing things that he saw needed to be done first before he got in his carseat, i.e. choosing the exact cd he wanted to listen to, and then finding just the right toy for Isaac so that he would stop fussing. Then he was ready. On our outing, he brought along a small dinosaur and the dinosaur would have to eat leaves everywhere we went. Danville and San Ramon have a lot of leaves, but sometimes we would get caught up in a parking lot island waiting for that dinosaur to finish eating those leaves.
I am a bit emotional about this because I feel like the last couple of years with James have flown by and have I really been able to just "be" with him and enjoy who he is? I can't stand that he is going to be four and I don't know if I savored the time with him like I should have.... "
So my mom in her experience of raising 5 children said that with raising kids, you pay so much attention to the first one that you blink your eyes and all the younger ones grew up without you even noticing. That's what I feel like has happened with my sweet James. He is growing up and I'm not sure I'm ready for it yet. But what can I do? Life has got to happen. Love you James!
