time passing

Many things have been conspiring lately to force me to recognize just how fast time goes. Other people's children who I thought were still small enough to ride in strollers are off to high school, or college. I see high school friends of mine have children in their forties and some of them are great grandparents. And then there is Ella.

Ella was my first granddaughter and I was waiting in the hall the day she was born. I heard her first cries and I wept. She had food allergies as a tiny baby that caused her much misery. We would stare at her little sleeping face and talk about how sweet she was, but when she woke up and started to howl, our eyes bugged out and we froze.

Then she was a little girl who liked to play with makeup, dress up fancy in long dresses, hats, and jewelry. She loved the camera. She loved to bake and cook. She loved to read books in bed.

Suddenly (to me) she is 12 and she wears heels when we go out for dinner. I'm shuffling along in flat, fur-lined boots and she comes down the snowy sidewalk in 4-inch heels. She's almost as tall as I am and she's pretty self-sufficient.

The past two days she came to the Arts Center with me and learned the docent duties...how to open the doors and turn the lights on, how to check the mail box in the alley, how to empty trash and recycling, how to keep track of guests in the gallery and in the clay studio. The Square POS, which has caused no end of consternation among our older staff was a snap for her. Less than five minutes and no instruction and she had it down. She was amazed that I was amazed.

Alex and Elliot turn ten this month. Easton is almost walking. Zoey has dance recitals and walks to school by herself. The two babies, Sully and Natalie, are doing something new every time we see them.

It's wonderful and it's scary.

I talk to my friends and to Regis about how we don't feel old, but I guess we kind of are. Not that there's anything wrong with that.