Stop and Smell the Roses

http://youtu.be/stIdPlnB2QY

Today, Kelsey put on one of my old albums from way back when her sister and brothers were just young kids.  Suddenly, tears filled my eyes.  It just hit me just how fast time has sped by.  It seemed like it was just yesterday they were all kids at home, doing all those things kids do that gave us joy or drove us nuts or made us laugh.

As the music played on, I remembered so many little things...the time when Lyndee was almost 3 and was hospitalized because her white count was so elevated they told us she had acute leukemia.  It was on my dad's birthday, and we were so far apart and I called to wish him happy birthday, but couldn't stop the tears when he asked how the babies were.  How hard it was to tell him our precious baby girl was in the hospital, so very sick!  But, oh what joy when 5 days later, her blood count was back in the normal range and they determined she had had a near fatal reaction to a medicine...not leukemia.

I remembered Cris...my tough little guy...playing in the living room of the badly furnished rented house we had when we first came to France.  I remember the latch of a drop dpwn cabinet door giving way and splitting his lower lip open down to where his chin creased.  He cried at the moment, but when we got to the emergency room, that tough little guy never cried a tear, even when they injected each side of his lip and then sewed him up!  He was only 2, and yet he was a little trooper!

And Shan...the time he ate the shoe polish when he was 9 months old when I was home alone with no car.  One of these days I will tell you that story in detail, as it was crazy and, in the end, very funny!

And Kelsey!  She was the baby!  REALLY the baby.  Her siblings were all in their teens when she came along!  She had everyone's constant attention, but managed, one day, when she was supposed to be napping, to climb up a bookshelf and get my allergy pills and swallow half a dozen of them!  That also was a trip to the hospital!

They were funny kids!  Lyndee lined all her dolls up all around her every night, and she loved to help cook in the kitchen!  Her first cookies were...um...very salty as she put in 1/2 cup of salt instead of a half teaspoon!  But she turned into a champion cookie maker!

Cris...he was always up to something!  When he was 5, we got back from the airport and saw him sitting on the roof of the house!  I will also tell you that story another time!

Shan...he took on a car with his new bike and came up losing...his tooth!

Kelsey was the queen of "Achy Breaky Heart" and a real "Wild Thing"!

I am a music person, so they all grew up with music and we would sing crazily together!  They are all very talented in so many ways!  The older 3 homeschooled, and that was...well..it was!  I have stories galore about those days!  I have to admit that there were times that were stressful, too, and there were times we didn't take time to stop and smell the roses...and suddenly the petals had fallen to the ground and winter is upon us!

Mother's day is coming up, and with it comes a bittersweet feeling!  I look back on my own childhood, and I realize that I didn't truly appreciate, back then, what a blessing it was to have a loving mother who was a Godly, dedicated mom.  Now, she is almost 84.  I wish I could see her and my dad more often, but only get to every other year or so.  I miss them more all the time!  Just as I reminisce about my own kids, I know my folks are doing the same about us!  I hope their memories are as tender and pleasant as mine are about my kids.  I hope my kids, now that they are parents, are stopping to smell the roses in their own kids lives, because all to soon, those kids are up and grown and walking out the door! 
http://youtu.be/ZjnspvbsWVs