Special Moments

Every now and then we all reflect on how life has passed by in a flash....like,"I can't believe your son is already 3-years old..where has the time gone?" As a mother, I have these frequent moments. Watching your children develop from infants to young adults sometimes seems like an eternity (especially the teenage years!), until there's a milestone...special birthday, wedding, anniversary etc... Case in point: my youngest, Caroline, recently attended her first formal affair, a friend's Bar Mitzvah. She needed a special dress, shoes, bag...the whole works. A few weeks before the event, we shopped all day searching for that perfect outfit....which wasn't easy...(a 13-year old hates shopping with her mother...she may be seen in public by a school friend! That apparently is the kiss of death to a young teenager.) At last we found the perfect dress..something elegant, yet conservative. After all, it was a religious affair, not a nightclub event. We brought it home, carefully hanging it in Caroline;s closet for the big day. And that special outfit slipped my mind until the date of the Bar Mitzvah...While she was primping in her room for her big day, I realized then that my little girl wasn't so little anymore.... she had grown into a beautiful young lady...worried about boys, make-up, what kind of jeans and shoes to wear..is my hair okay...etc, etc.. What happened to that skin-kneed, curly haired, tom boy who always brought home a frog, lizard, toad or some other crawly thing in her pocket? The little girl who climbed every thing in site, jumped in every puddle and found dirt in the rarest of place? I remembered when you were just a baby, your first words, your first steps...your first day of school. Now, here you are, a teenager, getting ready for a special occasion....When she walked out of her room, I almost cried. It was a moment that will stay with me till the day I die. She looked beautiful and so grown up! I was so proud. My baby wasn't so little anymore...where has the time gone?