“The days are long but the years are short.”

~Gretchen Rubin

When our daughter insisted a few weeks ago on having her stuffed animals greet her again on the morning of her 6th birthday, I was secretly thrilled. This was a last minute scheme we implemented on the eve of her 5th bday after seeing a clever TikTok my mother-in-law sent. I recall the video featured a toddler opening their door and being blown away by the “stuffy party” waiting for them. My wife and I thought our daughter would get a kick out of it, but we also weren’t sure if she had “aged out” of this kind of thing. Turns out, it was a hit and low and behold, she requested an encore presentation this year.

They say “you blink” and your child is all grown up. I’m aware we still have some years ahead of us, but it’s also not lost on me that time is moving quickly. In September she will start first grade. She’s using language that I’m sure I didn’t teach her. (New favorite phrases include “bro” this and “bro” that. She recently started saying, “duh.”) These phrases seem to come out of nowhere and when I hear them I’m partly inclined to push back and say, “Excuse me? We don’t say that, etc.” While most of me just thinks it’s so darn cute. She still seems so little, and yet, she’s testing new boundaries and limits each day.

Our kids’ questions and stories are getting more sophisticated and harder to answer. And I’m reminded lately there is no playbook out there to help us parents figure out how to guide them…

• We are leaving a concert on a recent summer night, waiting for a bus to take us back to our cars, and with the most impractical and improbable timing, she exclaims to my wife, “I’m afraid to die.”
• When she comes home hot and sweaty during the first week of day camp and shares that some of the kids are poking around asking why she doesn’t have a dad. They don’t believe her that she has two moms. Her response to them…. “It’s true. I do.” (Sigh. What are THEIR parents sharing–or not sharing–at home?)
• We are finishing up dinner the other night and she shares under her breath, albeit a bit hesitantly, that some of the kids were talking at the bus stop about being Christian and celebrating Christmas. Our daughter exclaims to the bus counselor, “I’m Jewish!”

I’m beyond grateful that she is starting to open up about these day-to-day queries. And yet, my chest tightens at the thought of what other questions, disappointments and mishaps lie ahead. Will she share all of them and will we be able to catch all of the nuances and eventual tears?

I’m not ready for elementary school. No thank you. Can we just rewind a few more years?

This year her 6th birthday falls on a Saturday, the first Saturday since the year she is born. It’s summer 2020, the height of COVID. There are no visitors allowed in the hospital and we return home to a dark cloud still hovering above us. How are we going to manage? We leave without an instruction manual, other than a handout on postpartum depression and a “poop and a pee chart.” It seems I’m always looking for signs and “mile markers” to make a connection back to that first year. Ground Zero. We had no idea what we were getting ourselves into. (We still don’t most days).

And yet, I wonder if we can look at this time in our lives as a “both/and”? Can we look back with a healthy “nostalgia” for the early days of tracking “poops and pees”? And can we be grateful for the growing independence and testing of limits that come with a slow separation from our little ones. A type of “separation” that I’m realizing more and more defines motherhood all together. As usual, Brandi Carlile nails this contradiction with her lyrics from You Without Me.

So happy 6th birthday, dear one. May you continue to grow into yourself, with confidence and ease and that sassy spirit we all love.

Lyrics–You Without Me

“Oh

Was your smile always crooked? Was the freedom ever free?
Do you kick the rocks between your feet, after all this time with me?
You can listen to your own records now, decide what you believe
You can pray on stars and skip the gods like stones across the sea

But I would know you anywhere, I lost myself in you
Heavy are the hands that you are free to slip right through
Do what you have to do

There you are, my morning star, I wondered when you’d show
Give me just a quick thumbs up, a wink before you go
I never heard that voice before today, I remind myself to breathe
There you are, it’s just you without me

I’m late to another game, I guess I never learned the rules
I showed up with a broken name and handed it to you
I’m not sure if you can fix it now, but if you wanted to
I would follow you around and carry all your tools

I would know you anywhere, I found myself in you
Heavy are the hands that hold the changes you go through
Do what you have to do

There you are, my morning star, I wondered when you’d show
Give me just a quick thumbs up, a wink before you go
I never heard that voice before today, I remind myself to breathe
There you are, it’s just you without me
Without me

As predictable as time and age, but comforting in some strange way
Time makes every one of us an absolute cliché
But when I met you face to face, none of it was true
So who am I if I’m not you?

There you are, my morning star, I wondered when you’d show
Give me just a quick thumbs up, a wink before you go
I never heard that voice before today, I remind myself to breathe
I’m ever just a thought away, if ever you need me
You’re gonna live a lot of life, you’re gonna see a lot of years
God willing, just you without me
There you are, just you without me

Without me
Without me