DON'T BLINK

Yesterday our boy turned 12 years old.  The old saying that ‘time flies’ could not be more true when raising a family. 

There is no break in parenting.  No off switch.  Each day is a new adventure, a new learning experience, a new struggle, a new goal accomplished.  The best thing you can do as a parent is each day try to have a positive day, a learning experience for your son or daughter, a life lesson taught.

Some days you are just trying to get a shower and get dressed to get through the day.  Especially when they are babies and it seems like all they do is eat and poop.  And this cycle is exhausting.  Eat and poop.  Eat and poop.  All you are doing is changing diapers and feeding em.  Day after day. 

Then they start to walk and it’s an entirely new adventure.

I remember for 5-6 years straight (as the boys are 2 and a half years a part) when we would go to parties I would follow them around making sure they didn’t mess up that person’s house or break anything.  I wanted them to explore, but I didn’t want them to destroy someone else’s property.

Then school starts and it’s an entirely new dynamic.

Now we are in full fledged ‘activity’ mode.  Sports, extracurricular activities.  So much so that each night and weekend is a different activity. 

I know in the mist of it the weeks are long and the days are longer, but much like 7, 8 years away from being up all night changing diapers and wondering if that time would ever end… that in another 7, 8 years both boys will be out of the house and in college and we will look back and these days are a blur.

Life comes at you fast. 

Savor those moments.  Cause although each day seems like a struggle, each year goes by quicker and then you blink and wonder where the 12 years has gone.

Life and raising kids is like building a house.  Look at each day as a brick.  In the beginning those bricks don’t look like much as you are building a foundation for life and for success.  But keep stacking those bricks (ie: your core values) on top of one another and then you can look back in 5, 10, 50 years and hopefully you have stacked enough good bricks together that you have a great son or daughter.  Yes there will be storms and hurricanes that come and knock the house over at times, but if the foundation is there, then you can ‘weather the storm.’

Life is not unlike business… and having not yet finished 2 years running my own organization I need to look at it the same way.  The business is still in its infancy, we are still stacking those foundational bricks and before we start stacking the bricks incorrectly it is easier to rebuild now than in 5, 10 years.  Tomorrow, I want to go further into this.

But today’s Musing is about raising those awesome sons and daughters…

Son, I’m proud of the young man you have become and will continue to become!  Keep stacking those bricks!!!