Hi! Look at me! I’m the first parent who’s ever lamented that his child is growing up too fast!
In truth, I do have a sense that Ava’s growing up pretty quickly. This morning I sat and looked out my window as the high school kids parked up all the available real estate on the streets in front of our house. One girl in particular fascinated me. She drove up in a minivan by herself and unloaded a huge backpack and an instrument case. As she grabbed her stuff out of the back seat, she also threw on her hat and scarf. Then she closed up the van and locked the door before she trudged away up the sidewalk. She couldn’t have weighed more than 90 pounds and wasn’t any taller than Leah is.
I couldn’t help thinking about Ava as this skinny little girl driving to high school in her parents’ minivan. Someday that will be her. How in the hell is she ever going to get from the tiny, relatively helpless sprite she is now to a driver’s license having, instrument playing, high school attending young woman? And what role will I have in that transformation? I wondered if this girl’s parents thought at all about their little one heading off each morning in the family automobile, and how things ever came to this. I don’t know if it’ll be wonderful or painful to think back at times like these, in the future, and think about the girl that Ava is now. I guess I’ll find out.