Children

" Children are here to stay but 
   our babies and toddlers and 
   pre-schoolers are gone as
   fast as they grow up and we
   only have a short moment
   with them" -  St. Claire Adams Sullivan

This is a quote that has struck a cord in my being..I first heard something like this from a very good friend. She has always reminded me that I may be busy , was really busy but she told me to take my kids, my family with me, no matter where I go, no matter how busy I get while they are kids. And I guess I liked that idea  and maybe I did just that. When my kids were growing up so fast , my husband and I have spent maybe enough time with them, bringing them to work  (ooopss, maybe a risk to your work life but worth it) , take them when we go out of town for work, we just took every opportunity to bring them with us wherever we go... we've been to so many hotel rooms, resort rooms in far away provinces,  went hotel hopping ,gone to  exotic places, even climbed  Taal Volcano on a horse, rode elephants while singing  "loi loi kratong" ........ not so much because we can but because we feel that time might run out ....that friend told me that someday soon, maybe sooner, we will not be able to bring them with us because they will have their own life, separate from the one we may have planned for them, for us...

That quote was printed in both the 7th birthday  invites of my kids...I don't know why...somebody even told me that that quote is sad ...looking back, maybe that was the feeling I had., maybe at the back of my head I know that after 7 , the years will fly so fast and one day soon, i will wake up and find my kids are no longer kids ....maybe it was a mother's intuition....well my kids are no longer kids, they are teenagers now...living their own lives (or so they thought ha ha ha) ..

Yes , they still live with us, but on Saturdays and Sundays , they have all the excuses and reasons not to go with us,..they have their own affairs to run, all the excuses to reject all our suggestions  ,do their things, , go wherever they want... Boy, life has turned around for us, seems we like to cling to our children the way they used to be when they were young....

Well, this is how life turns out, soon our kids are no longer kids , , perhaps they were never ours.... but my  hope is that someday my kids will be able to say that they enjoyed their childhood with us as much as we enjoyed having them as kids  ..and all the lugging luggages  all over, having  baby bottles , milk and those bulky baby bags, taking yayas along...were all worth it...letting go of our kids and letting them live their lives comes sooner than we expect them to ... and then what do we do? we let go and  go back to our own lives and live another chapter of it .... feels  I am going there.... feels that we are on our way .....to that place.... the years have flown so fast and their childhood  is a thing of the past .......and we continue with our lives...