Road-trippin'

Today we all got gussied up (except Mr. Whoozyer, who wore shorts and a blue and tan Hawaiian shirt), piled in the minivan and drove to The City for a graduation party (where each of our children managed to have at least 1 meltdown).

On the way Whoozyerhusband and I managed to score a mini-date. The kids were asleep and we pondered them on the way. Graduations tend to make you think about the inevitability of your own children growing up and fleeing the nest.

We were talking about having children, enjoying one another and growing old together. We were talking about somehow, having this 2nd child doesn't seem to strain our relationship the way having the first one did. That passage into parenthood is difficult and trying even in the strongest of relationships. But Whoozyerbaby is a peach and Whoozyerdaddy seems to relish fatherhood more than he expected to. He calmed and soothed Whoozyerkid today at the party when her car-nap was curtailed--when I couldn't. Whoozyerdaddy wants to find some way to slow it all down. Life is moving disconcertingly fast. How do we do it? How do we slow down our sweet lives so that we can savor them, bottle the scent of our babies' heads, remember those long glances and the eager click of their jaws synchronized with the bob of their heads while latched at my breast? Or when, Whoozyerbaby swallows, pulls off and grins at me---as if nursing is getting in the way of her joy at discovering her mother is there smiling at her? Whoozyerkid did that--and I had forgotten. Does it take one more baby to make it stick forever in my memory? How can we imprint the feel of tiny fingers tightening around ours and actually stroking our hands? Could we please remember every cute, funny and brilliant thing that they do or say? Freeze dry the first "I love you"? How is it done? How can I make that last hug last...?