Is it fair that children have to grow up?

What are the moments that mark childhood’s end?

Our children grow up mostly in hindsight, with changes happening quietly, gradually, incrementally.

We allways seem to remember the first things they ever did:-

Their first steps
Their first words
The first time they got dressed
The first  time they read their first book
All the "FIRSTS"

Even more elusive are the “LASTS.”

When was the last time I carried each one of my children's, legs wrapped around my hip, arms clasped around my neck?

Or when I tucked them into bed and kissed them goodnight saying:"Mommy, loves you"

When I sat reading them a story and all the questions, that just shoot out of their mouths and you don't know which one to answer first?

The last time that I fetched them at school?

or perhaps the last time they will sleep in their beds, where I can keep a watchful eye over them, that they don't get hurt...

There had to have been a last time, but no way to honor it as it happened. 

Wrote their name on their ballet clothes?

Walked with them hand-in-hand, without them feeling "embaressed?


Once in awhile though, leaps and losses announce themselves, and we just happen to be standing there, paying attention.

We take photos when we can, like the matric farewell (prom), because we can.

These are mental snapshots, clear and rare.

Those last moments, do we remember them?

I miss, the simpler times, I just wish they did not have to grow up.