And so it begins...

I am back from my morning at the pool, Little Man is upstairs, possibly napping, possibly tearing his closet apart again (after which I will find him wearing his clip-on tie from Easter and a down vest) and the rest of us are taking a much needed break from the sun. Well, almost all of us. #1 is still at the pool with her friends, after one of their mothers generously offered to drive her home in a few hours. It's nice she has found a group of friends, all of whom are nice, polite, academically minded and athletic - not a mean girl in the bunch (so far). They have playdates and sleepovers, and like today, we all often offer to keep one another's kids so the girls can have more time play. I really couldn't be happier about it.

Then why am I so sad?

Our summer has been wonderful so far. We have been to the library to see the magician, went to the beach for the day earlier in the week and gone out for ice cream a shameful number of times already. But when we are home, it seems the balance has shifted. Rather than being able to shut the door on the world and be our own little tribe, #1 asks to make plans with her friends every other day. We are not loosening the ties of school as much as last year, and it seems #1's focus is slowly moving toward her peers. At the town carnival last week, H and I spent the entire time split up between the little rides, like those lame, glittery cars that go around and around, for the younger two, and the bigger rides like the Scrambler, where #1's friends and their parents were. Having made an agreement to meet H and the little ones for funnel cake, I told #1 it was time to go, to which she replied, "Can't I just stay?". Our first family outing of the summer and we were all scattered to the winds.

Even the way she plays with her brother and sister has changed. At the park after dinner yesterday, Little Man and #2 were animatedly playing some pretend game with his trucks. When he offered #1 a truck and asked her to play, she very kindly said, "No thanks, buddy." He and #2 were really yucking it up, this wasn't some lame vroom-vroom-fest, I even heard the word "butt" being whispered, and yet, #1 was not interested. Instead, she headed to the monkey bars, alone, and continued her quest to get across them without touching the ground. And a little part of me died.

I know all of this is natural, but all of my kids were babies, toddlers and little kids, all in the same tiny wheel house, for so long I can't help but be a little surprised as one of them crosses over into a whole new world and leaves the other two behind. I have gotten used to everyone not loving Sesame Street anymore, but I can not get used to #2 telling me she misses #1 as her sister leaves for another playdate. To that point, I have had to create special "sister time" where they go up in the attic bedroom and play undisturbed for an hour each week. Thankfully, #1 seems to enjoy this as my middle one.

I know I should be happy about this situation, and I am. I am glad she has such a nice gang to hang around with and I would be really upset if she had no interest in making friends, or worse, was an outcast, but I know this divide will only widen as time passes and I have cried about it in the last two weeks more times than I care to admit. If H watches me sob during the Winne the Pooh trailer with that song "Somewhere Only We Go" and gives me a pitying chuckle one more time, I will beat him senseless (I managed to hold back the tears when the trailer played before Cars 2, but #1 was looking at me curiously as I gripped her hand). He just doesn't get it. This is my brood, they are all my babies and, for some reason, this process feels like a chapter is closing in my life.

No one told me that mothering included a little bit of grieving. I grieve for the toddler who cried when Steve from Blues Clues left for college, for the chubby-cheeked girl holding back the tears on her first day of kindergarten, as she now had a younger brother, as well as a younger sister, to impress. I grieve for her as achingly as I did for my mother, knowing I will never, ever see her again and wishing I had known at the time. I don't want another baby, I want a time machine.

Boy, this all sounds pretty grim. It's not really that bad. I still find #1 playing silly pretend games with the younger two, and Polly Pockets are still heavy in the rotation. She still crawls into bed with me on nights H is out for work asking "Can I read and snuggle with you?", to which I always answer yes, not knowing when she will stop wanting me to hold her and stroke her hair.

To manage these feelings, I have begun to think about mothering a family as being the sun of a small solar system. The planets, in their elliptical orbits, sometimes seem very far away, and other times, very close, but they never leave their path around the sun. And like those planets, there will be times, as they grow, when my children will want and need to be close to me, and times when they need some distance. And like the sun, I will stay centered and warm, so that they know, no matter where they are on their path, I will always, always be here.