seasons change.

Mirror in the sky what is love? 

Can the child within my heart rise above?

Can I sail through the changing ocean tides?

Can I handle the seasons of my life?  

- “Landslide” by Fleetwood Mac

For me, there is no season with a pull stronger than the arrival of fall.  The crunching leaves, cold nights and shorter days seem to not-so-quietly whisper the need for change in our daily lives.  Lessons begin, school bedtimes resume, weekend sporting events replace beach days and suddenly everything in family life is dominated by the almighty schedule.

I can remember a time post-college when fall simply meant I got to decorate my apartment doorstep with mums and buy some cute new sweaters.  Today fall means I’d better get some rest and drink a Sugarfree Red Bull because my entire world is about to get turned on its head whether I have the energy for it or not.

So much change comes with the seasons of parenting small children.  As I watched my kids get ready for their first day of the school year (with varying levels of enthusiasm) I remembered back to what those firsts felt like for me when I was their age.  I can still remember the giant emotional smoothie that mixed anxiety, excitement, self-doubt and happy anticipation until you finally felt like the top was going to blow off the blender seconds before the school bell rang. 

My kids were no different.  I could feel their energy as they braced themselves for big change the same way I can feel the chilly night air on my skin. 

Being a mother has many upsides, but if after nine years in the game I had to pick a favorite parenting benefit, I would have to say it the way you suddenly remember.  For almost every life stage I have watched them experience I have remembered something about my own childhood that until that moment, had been long forgotten.  I have been reminded of people, places and situations that I may never have visited in my memory if it wasn’t for the gift of watching my own kids. 

Things just come back to you.  Things like. . .

• Showing my daughter where to place the silverware on the dining room table and hearing my mother say “Just remember, the spoon, the knife and the fork got in an argument.  The spoon and the knife were right, so the fork left”. 

• Building a snowman with my kids and picturing my father looking like a young Tony Danza (plus one huge late-80’s mustache) building the very same snowman in the front yard of the house I grew up in.

• Taking a long family road trip and remembering how I used to poke my head from the backseat into the front so I could hear what my parents were saying (wearing a seatbelt was pretty much optional in those days, so why not)?

• Reading bedtime stories to my kids and remembering my mother reading the very same books to me (Santa Mouse is a timeless classic, I don’t care what anyone says).

• Struggling to force an ill-fitting ski boot onto my daughter’s foot and suddenly being back at the very same ski hill as a little girl - hoping my Dad would be able to get my boot on before his fingers froze off (or my toes, whichever came first).

We remember all of it, don’t we?  Admittedly not every memory is perfect, but then, no family or childhood ever has been.  Not only do we recall these experiences, but we get to live them all over again, as teachers.  We build sandcastles, learn to swim, ride a bike, and get our hearts broken for the first time.

We watch the seasons change through the eyes of our kids and all the while our own childhood is playing on some dusty old VHS tape we recorded in our memory years ago.  It’s beautiful and emotional and sometimes painful - but it is a gift. 

In those precious moments of pure childhood bliss we get to be there with them, feeling that same freedom and lightness through the seasoned eyes of an adult.  Only this time, we know how much those moments matter, and what they’re worth. 

As the holidays approach I hope we are able to remember the experiences and feel the excitement that lit us up when we were young.  I hope the light that shines so bright in our kids reminds us grown-ups of the beauty that we can still discover in every first, in every change, in every year, and in every season.