They Really Do Grow Up So Fast...

My daughter isn't even two and yet is able to string whole sentences together and in two languages, at that. I know there's some uber parent out there who would probably crow about his kid knowing six languages and being literate at the age of eleven months, but I frankly don't care.

My five-year-old son will be having his moving up day on Saturday, from Nursery to Kinder. He can read and write now and has the basic rudiments of math down.

I watched both of these kids come screaming out of their mother's womb, and now they're simply growing faster than I can possibly keep track of. I still remember clear as day the afternoon on which I signed the roll of attorneys, which makes sense because it wasn't even two years ago (though it will be soon) and yet since then my daughter has learned how to walk, talk and make life both a joy and a terror for those who care for her.

My son logged onto our dial-up connection last night and looked for an internet site of his choice. He's also just about memorized the make of every single one of the five dozen toy cars he owns.

I know that just about every responsible (and probably more than a few who aren't) parent has gone through this and my experiences are certainly nothing new, but it's still amazing to watch.

If there's one thing I'm glad about, though, it's that I didn't pay any attention to those idiotic celebrities and other people bragging about how their kids were walking and/or talking at certain ages. I'm glad I didn't, for the most part, anyway, push my kids towards development levels I thought they should be attaining. I was like that for awhile with my son, but happily I've outgrown that insecurity, thereby saving him from developing any. Sure, I still read to them and teach them their ABCs, but I had no plans of sending them to some quarter-million pesos a year pre-school (because, for one thing, I don't have that kind of money), or having them see some "specialist." I'm happy to see them developing at their own pace, because it's really been taking place in leaps and bounds.

I want my kids to grow up comfortable with themselves and their abilities. I certainly wouldn't want them to be full of themselves, but I'm glad I didn't turn out to be one of those parents eternally paranoid that my kid was too slow, or too small, or something like that. Genetics have been kind to my children, and for this I am grateful.

Still, it really does seem sometimes like they grow up just a tad too fast...