“You must have been warned against letting the golden hours slip by. Yes, but some of them are golden only because we let them slip,” J. M. Barrie once said.

I’ve been thinking about that quote because there are some big changes happening around here. Andrew will be starting high school in 11 days and Lexie is heading to middle school. They’re both excited about the changes, but I find myself wondering (not very originally) how we got here so fast.

The golden hours are slipping by, but as summer ends and a new chapter begins I want to make sure I don’t forget

how Andrew still turns and smiles as he walks away after being dropped off for football or band practice…how he makes me laugh so hard it hurts…how the first thing anyone says to Andrew is “You’re so tall!”…how strange it was to look up at him but how quickly I’ve gotten used to it…how he seems to have inherited his father’s quiet competence…how I think he’s going to turn out to be the kind of person you can count on…

how Lexie plays patiently for hours on end with her little sister…how she makes the most amazing miniatures out of clay…how she graduated from swimming lessons…how she loves to draw but doesn’t like to cook (except for sugar cookies)…how she can act so young one moment and so old the next…how she played her first drum solo in the mini-concert for families…

how Will’s eyes light up whenever Tim says they can go fishing or kayaking…how he enjoys having coffee with us in the morning (with milk and sugar, of course)…how he got Tim to read The Hunt for Red October for bedtime stories and how we’ll probably be reading it until Andrew graduates…how he’ll do anything to get his big brother’s attention…how he can tell what kind of airplane it is when to me it looks like a large dot in the sky…

how Lily learned how to jump off a diving board..how she read her first chapter book…how she says “meep” when flummoxed…how she likes to help with jobs, especially shucking corn…how she gives me “hairstyles” during bedtime stories…how she says “I can’t make my cheeks go down!” when she can’t stop laughing….how she refuses to learn to ride her own bike because she loves the tagalong on mine…how she eats half a watermelon a day…

They’re growing fast, but for now they’re still mine to “love and guide,” as Anne Shirley Blythe says, and “to sing the songs that so many mothers had sung.”

Do you find yourself wondering where the days, weeks, months go? How do you keep your memories?