Ages and Stages

I was Skyping with my daughter the other evening.  She is 19, away at college.  As we talked about this and that (the Thanksgiving decorations she could see over my shoulder, our puppy tearing ass all over the living room, the sounds of her brother throwing something together for dinner in the kitchen), I noticed something that tickled my heart.  Her nostrils were flaring as she talked, in just the same tiny almond shape they did when she was a baby.

I mentioned it to her, and she chuckled, quite used to this kind of observation from me.  When I look at my daughter, I see her at every age and stage all at once, as if every moment of her life is vibrant and present within her all at once.  And in a way, it's easy to see how that could be so.  In my mother's heart. she will always be my baby girl no matter how grown up and mature she may become.

Oddly enough, I am having quite the opposite experience with my son.  Nearing 14, he towers over me.  Seemingly overnight, his voice has changed.  He's started shaving (more an experiment, I think, to encourage the growth of hair on those peach cheeks I love to kiss).  He's learned to modulate the amount of cologne he sprays on before he heads off for his 8th grade day (one spritz will do it, thank you very much). He's not telling me everything about which girl he might happen to be interested in on any given day. He's figured out that the right way to keep me from being a mad grouch when I get home from work is to clean his stuff up in the living room, wash the dishes in the sink, and bring in the mail. 

When I look at him, what I notice are all the things that have changed so quickly.  I am hard pressed to imagine him as my tiny boy.  Athough those memories are still clear as a bell (the golden curls, the impish grin as he pinches his older sister, the constant talking - to me, to his sister, to himself, to an invisible audience), it's as if he's a different person.  The physical changes are simply that pronounced.

But oh, how beautiful they both are, at all ages and stages.  I am blessed to be their mother (even on the crazy days).