Time Flies

I was brushing my teeth this morning, when I heard an excited little voice say, "Daddy, guess how much I got for my tooth!"  I opened the door to find 7 year old P standing there beaming, telling me how she got two dollars!  Totally warmed my heart of course, but got me thinking about how this is the last couple of teeth I will experience one of my children losing.  There is something so wonderful about the simple joy a child has in losing their teeth.  For them, it means they are getting older and losing their "baby" teeth.  For us, it also means they are getting older, and when it is the last child in the family, there is a certain melancholy that accompanies it.  So what is my reaction to this?  Well, I think an important reaction is to be conscious of spending as much time with them as possible.  With our oldest already 13, much of her childhood is in the rear view mirror.  She is turning into a wonderful person, which is gratifying, but it is still hard not to miss the child she once was.  So perhaps we grieve a little for the "youngness" (youth does not seem the right word) we no longer experience, which is a reasonable reaction to a loss.

But the youngness is not gone of course, as illustrated by P's statement the other day while deciding what to wear for the day. They often check in with me on what to wear during cold weather, as I have become somewhat of an authority on keeping warm, based partially on my days working at an outdoor outfitter.  She had appropriately chosen long pants and long sleeves for a February day, and I noted that it was going to be a bit warmer than it had been, probably in the 40s.  She said that was warm, and she was going to change into short sleeves.  I questioned that, and she said, "Well, the 40s is almost 50, and 50 is almost 60, which is warm!"  We almost fell over laughing.