In the eyes of my child

This is so fucking cliché’, but why or why does time have to pass so quickly? Monday, Adrian starts “big boy school”, and I’m having a little bit of a hard time dealing with that. After all, wasn’t it just yesterday that he came into our lives? For those of you who have been reading my crap for a while, it may seem like so. For the rest of you, catch up.

About 2 weeks ago Jed and I had to go register Adrian for school. On the way to the elementary school he’ll be going to, Jed started getting all sappy and teary. I asked him what was up and he said he “Just wasn’t ready for Adrian to start school yet.” I tried to butch it up as much as I could and said, “Jed, they’re only ours for a little while…” and as the words started coming out of my mouth, I started getting a little choked up myself.

While commiserating with the mother this last weekend about how fast he’s growing up she told me that she couldn’t believe she’d passed her window of opportunity to keep him for any length of time and that now she would have to start sharing him on a school schedule basis. No shit?! THAT’S ANOTHER THING I hadn’t considered…long forgotten will be the days of loading the kids up on a Thursday for an impromptu camping trip at Homo Haven. And where did the time go? Three and a half years have passed and my bathroom still sits in shambles; the backyard, neglected; the house getting messier and messier…yet with all the outward appearances of “crap”, I see a house filled with love and memories in just 42 short months.

My son, if I do say so myself, is BRILLIANT. On Thursday, while talking to mom about time I can’t slow down, I walked into the house to grab a glass of water. Adrian came running into the kitchen and loudly demanded, “DADDY, YOU NEED TO GO BACK OUTSIDE.” I do, I wondered? “Why,” I asked. He replied, “Cuz you’re talking on da phone…(pregnant pause) and I can’t hear the t.v..” I snickered and told him “okay” and walked back outside. My mom and I got a good laugh about what a “sassy bitch” he had become. “Just like his father,” mom said. After just a few short minutes I realized I had forgotten to grab that glass of water I had gone in to get. So I walked back into the house (QUIETLY, of course…don’t want to disturb Adrian’s television watching!) and I catch that little fucker standing at the corner of the table, arm stretched out behind him (at least a good six feet…the kid’s got amazingly long arms) to the table INSIDE A BAG OF COOKIES while his neck is craned around a corner so he can see the television…obviously not able to hear me walk in. He was shoveling cookies into his mouth so fast that I thought he was a virginal Indian goddess with six arms moving. I yelled out, “WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING.” And he said, “fgro fweod for foookies.” I couldn’t really make out what he was saying, as he had about 26-30 cookies in his mouth. I said, “Is THAT why you needed me to go back outside?” He said, “Yeth.”

I mean, for reals. How smart is that kid? To tell me I need to go back outside so he can hear the television…only to realize that he had gotten me out there so he had complete and totally free access to the cookies? BRILLIANT I tell ya, brilliant. And my mom repeated, “Just like his father.”

So Brandi and Brandon…and any of you other new parents out there, seriously, believe me when I tell you. You don’t get these minutes back. Enjoy every single one of them that you can.