They're Only Kids Once

Sometimes I look at my kids and wonder.... how did you become mine? Who are you? What will you become someday? Is your childhood going to be one filled with good memories or will it be a passing phrase in time that you were glad to see go?

I wonder: am I cherishing each day? Living it to the fullest? Are my priorities righted? Do I have a vision of the future? Of hope? Of my children's lives?

Often I think about the fact that I wanted to grow up, get married and have kids. I did all that. And now that I'm in the "have kids" era, it's no longer about me. Now my kids have their own goals. Their own lives. Their own thoughts and desires. Their own "when-I-grow-up-I-want..." dreams and plans. This is IT for them. This is the real thing. It's not all about me living the life I always wanted anymore; it's about them being shaped for adulthood.

It's not possible to push a "record" button when we go to the zoo or park or have a birthday party and know that only what's played out during that time will be recorded as a keepsake childhood memory. The "record" button is not optional: it's down all the time. I can't "stop" the tape. The days I'm tired or distracted or preoccupied with my own things, are days their childhood memories are being made.

Each day is another chance for adventure. Another page in their life story. Another captured time in memory that they'll pull their childhood recollections from. What happens TODAY will hopefully cause nostalgia for them in twenty years.

I hope and pray their quickly-fleeting-childhoods will be but a bright spot in their lives, filled with direction, hope, bliss and love that shaped their perspective for the promising future.

Because nothing is quite as good as it was when you were a kid. And I'm making that count, today.