Clickety Click Clickety Click

The highlight of my day lately is watching Nikolai ride his bike as I drop him and Miriam off at Nycole's before I head to work. He pedals vigorously and flies down hills with abandon, occasionally shouting "Wahoooo!!!!" as he goes. My heart soars with him.

The other day he didn't want to ride his bike home when I picked him up, so I suggested that I ride his bike home and he push Miriam in the stroller (note: when Niko is being grumpy or stubborn, silliness is almost always the perfect antidote. If only I thought of it sooner!). Obviously this was the funniest thing he heard all day so he acquiesced joyfully. 

I'll admit, seeing him push Miriam was definitely the cutest thing I saw all day.

Nikolai will be 4 in January. While we're in Moldova, he'll turn 5, and when we come back to the states he'll start Kindergarten.

KINDERGARTEN.

I'm not really sure how that is possible.

Lately I get this feeling that Jesse and I are riding a parenthood roller coaster, but we're still climbing the first hill before the ride actually starts (clickety click clickety click clickety click). As a fervent lover of roller coasters, part of me is excited for the plunge that will come when we reach the top, when our kids start going to school and time starts to fly even faster than it does now. Won't it be lovely when Nikolai goes to school and comes home every day with his little brain fuller than it was that morning? Won't it be great when he can have complex conversations with us? (Ok, more complex conversations, because we already have fairly complex ones about ice ages and extinction and about violence and war and being kind). 

But part of me is afraid too, the same way I am when we're climbing that first hill on the roller coaster. What if I've picked a roller coaster that is too crazy? Wait, I really didn't want to go upside down and sideways and backwards all at the same time! What if it feels way different than we expected it would when we held hands there on the ground looking up at the massive metal structure, saying to each other "Boy, a triple upside down loop, that looks fun, right?"

What happens if other kids are mean to our kids and we're too stressed to properly manage work and family time and what if we do it all wrong and our kids turn out to be the kind of teenagers that dye their hair crazy colors and date people they shouldn't? (Oh wait, that was me...)  What if time goes too fast (do you feel it getting faster? or is that just me?) and there isn't enough time to teach our kids to be kind and good and brave? 

These are the things I think about as I hear the clock say clickety click clickety click, as we approach the top of that first hill.