The New Green Swim Trunks

When we first started having children I heard lots of things like, "The days are long but the years are short." (They weren't wrong). I was given lots of advice--some I even took. One bit of advice was to savor the memories. So I did. I journaled and blogged and took loads of pictures, especially of the big things. You know, the mile markers. 

When I brought the fourth baby home, the other three looked so big, so grown up. They weren't. When they started kindergarten I took a picture, and they looked so big! Six years later when they "graduated" from fifth grade I looked at the current kindergartners and thought, "They're just babies." When they left middle school to enter high school I took pictures and thought, "They are growing up so fast!" High school graduations brought me to tears as I looked at them and saw both the babies they were and the adults they were becoming. I look at high school seniors now and think, "How could someone who looks that young be leaving home?"

But I was ready for these moments. Well as ready as someone can be. I took the pictures. I wrote social media posts. I journaled, I knew there would be both pride and tears. And there was.

On Saturday he walked into the pool, said "Hey Mama" and sat down. I looked up from my book. He was wearing green swim trunks. I'd never seen them before. He hadn't sent me pictures when he was buying them. He hadn't asked me for money to buy them. He just bought them, or maybe the woman he loves bought them. I don't know. I just know I didn't, and I felt a slight gut punch and tears stinging the back of my eyes. 

People told me about the big things. I was sort of ready. But no one told me about the "new green swim trunks."