Yesterday when I went to pick up the kids after school, my youngest saw me first and I saw her face light up. She grinned, waved and started to walk towards my car..hopping on one leg. Every few pace, she turned to look and see if her brother who is busy talking to his friends has seen me. The biggest thrill for her is to reach my car before her brother sees me! Those few seconds are ours..hers and mine..
And she did it.
“Hi, mom, guess what? and she started to tell me whatever that happened from the time I dropped her to school.

Eventually her brother saw me.
He grabbed his bag from the floor, gave high fives to all his friends and started walking towards my car..if there was a race between him and the proverbial snail, the snail would have won!
He opened the car door, looked at me and said “sup?” ( what’s up !)
“How are you?” I asked
“fine” he replied, while fiddling with the car radio knowing very well that the one thing that is sure to annoy me is to change the radio channel or the settings. I spend many precious hours to get the bass and treble of the car stereo to my liking !
I didn’t want to start a fight, but I was tempted to swat his itchy hands and tell him to keep his hands off the radio! ( he never dared to touch the radio when he was young for he didn’t want to face my wrath!)

When I came to Australia my son was in grade 5 and he did all that baby did..hopping on one leg and running towards me and then talking to me about all that happened at school..

Next year he will be going to high school taking the public transport..

There was a time I wanted time to go fast..when each day was the same as the day before..feeding and changing the diapers..
I wanted my life back where I had time for myself. I wanted a few moments of privacy and solitude. I wanted to take a shower without one of them barging in to ask me something. I wanted to sleep without one of them waking me up to ask me how many moons Jupiter have?

And I wish..and I wish and I wish…if only the time could go a bit slow..