Transitions

No, I’m not talking about those lenses that change from light to dark when you walk outside. Although, they are cool. I’m talking life transitions. One phase to the next.

There are so many when you have kids.

Rear-facing carseat to front-facing. Bottle to sippy cup. Crawling to walking. Pooping wherever and whenever to the potty. Daycare to kindergarten. Elementary school to middle. Middle to high school. Something’s always changing.

This latest phase is the biggest one yet: college.

No. 1 has been deep in the throes of applications and essays, so I’ve been called upon a lot lately to edit her thoughts.

“Will you read this?” she asked one day, passing over her laptop.

The prompt was to describe some experience that was important to her. She wrote about family dinners. It was sweet — she said she never realized that so few kids sat down at the table with their families because of busy lives. She talked about how it got hard to concentrate on homework as the smells wafted in from the kitchen and how everyone would take turns talking about their day. Can you just see the Norman Rockwell painting? Thankfully, she left out the part about how all the dogs obnoxiously hoover around because one family member — cough, cough, No. 3 — is so messy and flings so much food that the dogs have been known to actually lick the walls behind him.

And then, this part really got me, she said she treasures this especially now because she realizes how quickly these dinners are coming to an end as she gets ready to leave home. Made me tear up. Just like I did over the weekend at the volleyball meeting when we planned out what would happen for senior night.

I don’t know how I’ll make it through high school graduation. But I do know that I will be carrying a mighty big purse — stuffed with boxes and boxes of tissues.