So as I pack away the wrapping paper and try to pay down my creidt card debt, and start making arrangement for rides to fall sports and high school musical auditions and art classes, I am finding I am too damn busy to think about anything but how fast the time flies. And it reminded me of the following piece, written by one of my favorite childrens' book authors, and one of my favorite pieces of prose. Cheesy, yes, but I have to meet myself where I am at.
***************************
Seems Like Yesterday
by Lynn Plourde
Seems like yesterday....
The pains started.
I grabbed my bulging belly
And danced with your Papa
Shouting, "It's time! It's time!"
Seems like yesterday....
you made your debut
Red-faced and screeching.
Your cries changed to coos as I held you.
My tears changed to oohs as you held me.
Spellbound with your magical, wiggly humanness.
Yesterday we were one.
Today we were two.
Seems like yesterday....
Your middle-of-the-night colicky cries.
We went on our familiar walk
Down the stairs,
Through the living room,
The dining room,
The kitchen,
Into the pantry
With made-up songs
Of soup and stews, pots and pans,
And back again.
Over and over.
Ten, twenty, a hundred times,
Until your cries were silenced.
Your breathing calmed.
Seems like yesterday...
Your first splashy sink bath.
Your first mushy meal.
Your first wobbly walk.
Your first wide-eyed word--
"Mama."
Seems like yesterday....
Your first birthday
Dressed in a diaper and frosting.
I helped you tear off wrapping paper,
Made your new teddy dance.
You threw down teddy
And had a party with the paper.
Seems like yesterday....
You were a bumblebee
At a dance recital.
The other bees buzzed
And floated and flitted onstage.
You stood frozen
Staring at the audience
Not moving a muscle
'Till the bow.
Then how you bowed and bowed and bowed.
And I clapped and clapped and clapped.
'Till a man three rows back asked me to stop.
Seems like yesterday....
Your first day at school.
We played jumprope in the driveway
'Till the school bus came
And swallowed you up.
I wore the jumprope as a necklace
All morning long,
Through my chores,
Through my tears,
'Till you returned with kisses,
Smiles, and stories
Of what a great place
Kindergarden was.
Seems like yesterday....
You won the spelling bee.
The school's
The county's
The state's.
We flew to Washington DC.
So giddy and giggly we didn't need a plane.
We filled four days with memorials, monuments,
Memories of a lifetime.
It didn't matter that you misspelled "merganser"
In the first round.
Seems like yesterday....
You had your first date
And your first pimple
All on the same day.
I sat on the floor
Outside the locked bathroom door
'Till your tears stopped
And you let me make everything okay
Like Mamas are suppose to do.
Seems like yesterday...
You got your driver's licence.
Had your first fender-bender.
Went to your first prom.
Seems like yesterday...
When my own mama died.
Everyone was kind,
Tried to say the right things,
Only you knew what to do.
You grabbed an armful
Of your granny's clothes--her nightgown, bathrobe,
a dress.
We wrapped ourselves in her scent
And pored over old photos
Crying and laughing till dawn.
Seems like yesterday....
We drove you to college
Two states away.
The next day you called--collect,
And said you'd cried
For three hours after we'd left.
I understood. I cried for six.
Seems like yesterday....
You were my baby.
Now you're having your own baby.
Still, you will always be my baby.
Always.
Even when your baby's baby has a baby.
You will always be my baby.
And it will always seem like yesterday.
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