This and That, with a Side of Weepiness

So, Ben turns 8 next week.  And I'm kind of weepy about it.  I know, they're getting older every day, but it's that marking of years that gets me.  And, I think, that his birthday happens to fall at the same time as the end of the school year.  I mean, EIGHT years old AND third grade??  Geeze, I may as well start shopping for his college dorm room.  Whoever said, "The days are long, the years are short," was, well ... clearly a Mom.

 

Thankfully, life has been insanely busy, so I really don't have time to sit around and cry in my wine (which would just be sad and inappropriate anyway).  Before kids, May was just a month.  Now, it is a marathon of sports, field trips, school projects, and end-of-year celebrations:

 See?  The very picture of busy-ness.

 But seriously, learning to wink is very time consuming.

 As is cheering on the Braves.

 The boys just finished a session of swim lessons.

Noah's coach wasn't an ugly human being (just sayin').

 And Eliza is finishing her first session of dance classes.

And the sports.  Oh, the gift that just keeps taking and taking (our time).

But then there's a post-victory dog-pile moment like this and you have to love it.  Ben's baseball team plays their post-season tournament this weekend.  (See?  Since when do we have a kid old enough to be playing a sports tournament?)

End-of-year chess awards ceremony.

And Noah's end-of-year class art show.

I drove Ben's class on a field trip last week.  When I asked to take a picture, I got this "Seriously, Mom?" look, instead of the smiley arms-around-each-other pose of years past (sniff).

 

And then this:

 The sniffer of all sniffers.  (Maybe that doesn't sound right?)

We celebrated our dearest friend Ava's first communion a couple weeks ago.  I mean, really now.



 

 Of course, there's always Mother's Day to put it all into perspective. 

 I like to think I set the mothering bar at an attainable reach for those around me.  You know, don't want to make anyone feel bad with my awesome parenting skills.

 But I don't know.  Eliza kind of nailed it with this gift:  I nice AND clean!  Occasional bathing AND Hungry Hippo skillz.  Sorry, moms - can't help but do what I do.

 

And, according to Noah, if it all just gets to be too much, I can always do a load of laundry to take the edge off:

"I love her one hundred thousand and around the world."

Best.  Words.  Ever.

 The days are long.  The years are short.

I'm blessed through all of it.