You know when you heart hurts intensely, and you feel like you are gasping for air. That is how I felt when we walked off the beach tonight. The littlest ones were the last to leave the beach because they are the slowest walkers in the clan. When I looked up to check on them I could see their little baby silhouettes in the fading sun. We literally spent all day on the beach in an effort to make this day last forever. When I was a young mommy, I was clueless as to how fast my children would grow up and I had no idea of the pain it would cause when they got older and left. Being an older mom is way freaking harder. It hurts a million times more to be a mom because I know the pain that is coming and I know how fast this will go by. As I left the beach tonight I knew next year when we returned they would all be bigger and our little baby silhouettes will have grown. I seriously want everything to stay as it is right now, with all of us together.

Crazily, about 9 years ago while Evan and I were down here in the Outer Banks, we agreed that we would try for another baby. At the time we had four older kids. We jokingly call those kids the original four. Over the next year or so we had two very painful miscarriages and then our second family took hold. Elijah was born 7 years ago, we have Sam who is almost 6 and baby Grace who is 3. This second round of babies has always seemed like such a miracle to me; I mean really, what couple gets to have two rounds of kids? And truthfully, at my age it was miraculous that I pulled that off.  I think by having the second round of kids I also was able to deny that the older kids were getting older and that they were on their way to leaving. I could look at the little ones and sort of pretend that we were this big huge clan and I didn’t have to focus on the bigger children leaving or getting older.

The “original four”

This year is very exciting and frightening for us as our older son Alex plans to marry, our two girls, Abby and Hannah, will be at college, our baby from the “original four” Riley will be starting high school, and the babies are starting to leave. Yep, those little ones are gonna leave us also. Elijah will be in 1st grade, Sam will be in kindergarten, and Gracie starts preschool.

Every time that sun sets my babies get a day older and a day closer to leaving me. All I can think is Ouch!!!!!!