Back to School

I cast my lot with the college crowd yesterday. Josh is completing his degree in the spring and needed me to deliver his internship application to ASU. There is a lot of construction on the campus now, but I still managed to find Lemon St. without getting lost and was able to weave my way through the mid-morning throng to the Undergraduate Student Services Building- a scruffy, little 1960s leftover. My errand took only a moment. Walking back to the car, I began to think about what an alien being I was to most of the kids churning past me. There I was, 6 years out of college, carrying my 2nd child in her infant seat back to our SUV after running an errand for my husband.

I dare not pretend to age or wisdom, but yesterday's experience made me realize that no one stage is particularly worse than another. When I was in college, I couldn't wait to get out from under the oppression of tests and deadlines and term papers. Now college is a thing of the past and I look back and think of how easy my life really was. If only I had know that then...but I suppose that grand revelation applies to my life of baby and toddler-hood now. When I spend all day dealing with temper tantrums and feeling like the local milk machine and dare to wish myself 5 years down the road, please remind me that 5 years from now will have it's own difficulties and that the joys of this period- the newborn snuggles, the extravagant love of my 3 year old, and the smell of freshly washed baby skin- will be gone as as quickly as college was.