Impossible and Inexorable

I'm pretty sure, though I don't have a clear recollection, that when Penny was a baby, the idea of her being in kindergarten and first grade seemed impossibly far away. Certainly, now that she's in first grade, it seems like only yesterday that she was a tiny baby in my arms.

This morning, for no real reason other than giving myself something to think about other than whatever "animal family" game Penny was playing in the back seat on the drive up to Alex's daycare, I was figuring out when Alex would start kindergarten. Turns out he'll be old enough for kindergarten in the '13-'14 school year (because a December birthday guarantees he won't start school until the year he turns 6).

It's '10 now, but that seems kind of unnecessarily far away. (Especially when I think about how much we'll be paying daycare every week between now and then.)

(It also occurred to me that we will have the most relaxed morning schedule we'll ever have, that year, since Alex and Penny will both be going to school at the same time. We'll be able to lounge around the house until after 8! The next year, Penny starts middle school, which means we'll be back to having to leave the house by 7:30. Though I might make her ride the bus. We'll see. It's a Long Way Off.)

And then, just for giggles, I thought I'd work out when Penny will graduate high school. Turns out that Penny is the Class of '21. 2021. Penny will finish high school just before my 50th birthday.

And Alex won't graduate until '26. That seems impossibly far into the future -- and it doesn't even get the boy through college.  (Though Penny should have finished her undergrad work by that point, at least. An advantage to having them almost five years apart.)

And yet -- fifteen and even twenty years into my past doesn't seem that long ago, now. Time marches on, and while I'm applauding Alex's graduation, I expect I'll remember the little boy in footie pajamas kneeling on my lap to play letters and numbers games on my computer with startling clarity, and wonder where all that time went.