As kids are wont to do, mine are growing up fast, and I’m feeling it especially acutely this week.  Last night we had the first parents’ meeting for what will be Tage’s kindergarten group, this afternoon I went to Lydia’s last parent-teacher conference before she starts junior high in the fall, and Olof was on the phone today finalizing our application for Petra to start pre-school as soon as a place opens up for her at the center we want.  They all seem so grown-up, all of a sudden.

Brynja, at least, is still tiny, and very many years away from venturing out on her own.  I take more comfort from that than you might imagine.  In fact, I think at least some of the reason that I’ve kept on having babies is because I can’t bear the way they all grow away from me.  (Wow, that sounds a little unbalanced, doesn’t it?  It’s not quite what I mean, but I’m short on time and can’t be bothered to think of a better way to say it.)

Sometimes I get to thinking about the way our family will be a few years from now, when Lydia is close to leaving home and the three little ones are smack in the middle of childhood.  I have a feeling this house is going to feel a whole lot smaller when it’s filled with four big kids on the go.  I forget to consider sometimes that these years are really only the beginning of my motherhood.  Even if you count the eleven years with Lydia I’ve got under my belt, I’m still only a third of the way done, at best, with child-rearing.  Huh.