By Fran McNabb
With the school year beginning, I started thinking about all the milestones we go through in our lives. As parents we celebrate, we worry over, and we look forward to those events that our children and we go through.
The beginning of school is one of those events. When our babies walk into a classroom for the first time, they begin a new cycle in their young lives. They might still be babies in our eyes, but they have taken on another role. They are little people eager to learn about and to experience what life has to offer. Their minds are like tiny sponges ready to soak up new information—and what new information there is now out there!
When my generation started the first grade, some of us had never been to kindergarten. We went in with blank minds waiting to be taught the things that today most of our children already know. Educational TV programs for little ones, involved parents, and daycare programs teach our babies things that many of us didn’t know until we started first grade.
My grandson just entered preK for 4-year olds. Like a lot of children, he learned to maneuver through apps on the iphone and ipad when I was still trying to figure out how to turn those devices on. It is amazing the things that little boy already knows, and it’s even more amazing to know what he will learn in the years ahead of him in school.
Life is made up of many milestones: entering and then graduating from school, going to college, finding the perfect partner for life and then getting married. That little boy will one day find his own perfect partner and together they will start their own cycle. They will have their own babies and will celebrate their own events in life.
I hope my husband and I are around long enough to see this little fellow through many of the special events in his lifetime. From one generation to the next, the cycle of life goes on. The older generation might have already gone through most of their milestones, but how rewarding it is to watch our children and their children go through theirs.
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This is so true, Fran. Watching a grandchild grow up is a reminder of those important milestones - and one of life's best blessings. Enjoy!
ReplyDeleteSandy, thanks for dropping by. I agree that watching our little ones go through their events in life is truly a blessing.
ReplyDeleteReading your post made me think of what my grandparents must have thought when I entered first grade, or perhaps what their grandparents thought about them. I'm reminded that as authors, we should write down what our lives were like as we watched the wringer washing machines be replaced with automatics, and the manual typewriter evolve to the electric, etc. Progress is progress, but we mustn't let the past disappear. Thanks for jogging my memories, Fran.
ReplyDeleteLoretta, you are so right. We all should've written down our emotional responses to the progress we watched come into our lives. What fodder we'd have for our books!
DeleteI haven't had the blessing of grandchildren yet, but I do have 3 granddogs and one grandcat, Not the same by any measure.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Loretta also. So many changes - party lines to cell phones, Edsels to BMW's with back-up cameras and self-parking mechanisms, print books to E-books and how did we ever survice without the internet?
I can only imagine what is coming for us next. Maybe finally a grandchild!!
Kathye, granddogs and grandcats are wonderful in their own way. After a while they become part of the family, but just wait for that first grandchild! It's an experience that's awesome! Thanks for dropping by.
DeleteOur granddaughter is starting college this fall (tomorrow, in fact) and her brother is starting high school next week.
ReplyDeleteMy youngest grandson isn't two yet and 'talks' on the smartphone and blows kisses to me on Skype. Without technology, I would only see him once every two years, if that. However, it is because of technology that families are more frequently separated - a two edged advance. His milestones are witnessed on a screen but the one I cherish is when he turned onto his back for the first time, on the floor of my living room, before my very eyes. Thanks for reminding me, Fran!
ReplyDeleteYes, technology is wonderful. My husband and I also used Skype to keep up with our grandson's growth. Really was great, but yes, being in your own living room is the best!
DeleteHi Fran--
ReplyDeleteMilestones are wonderful to celebrate but they are often emotional, too. While we're eager for our children to go off to school and college, I'm the kind that gets teary-eyed and wishing they could stay put for awhile longer.
Victoria--
Oh, Victoria, I couldn't agree more. I, too, am the emotional one and am the one who is usually teary-eyed. Nice to know I'm not alone.
DeleteVictoria, your article so resonates with me. It seems like only yesterday out two sons were going off to school, and now their own children are doing so. Where has the time gone?
ReplyDelete