Did You Smell That?

I smelled fall in the air two nights ago. We were swimming at the pool and I smelled a chill in the air and knew in an instant that autumn would be rushing in before we'd even finished getting acquainted with summer. I was right, too. This afternoon, Babygirl and I were in the backyard, bailing water from the sandbox, and I heard the tiny sounds of sprinkling snowflakes--only it wasn't snowflakes. It was needles from the neighbor's big trees with inconsiderate branches. They hang over into my yard, littering it with billions of sharp, prickly needles.

I've never been much of a tree-hugger (have you ever tried to get sap off your hands?)--aside from a stint in my youth when I read my stepmother's "Mother Earth Magazines" from cover to cover and became a vegetarian for two years and thought seriously about joining a commune. Other than that, I've never been a tree-hugging kind of girl and now I'd vote without hesitation to have those trees whacked down. Stupid trees.

I noticed later when I drove the kids to Wendy's for a delicious meal of fast-food that some trees have actually begun to change colors and lose their leaves.

Summer is slipping away.

My husband left for Houston very early this morning. I think he left by 5 a.m. I didn't hear a thing. I didn't have DaycareKid today, so I slept in until 8 a.m. when Babygirl's hollers woke me. Then I spent as much time as I could finishing my reorganizing, purging and cleaning project. The storage room looks decent now and I rearranged the boys' room and set up desks and lights for them so they can take their assessments for www.k12.com. The twins will both be schooling at home this year--which is kind of a cross between homeschooling and public-schooling. I have high hopes for them.

Babygirl has suddenly been narrating her life. The other night, we stopped our car, I rolled down the window and said hello to a friend. Babygirl said, "Who-zat?" And I said, "That was Kelly." She said, "Kelly in da white car."

I couldn't believe it. Kelly was driving a white car and Babygirl noticed the color of the car. I didn't even know she knew it. Babygirl has started talking as much as the big kids. I'm not sure whether to be thrilled or scared.

Babygirl has developed an obsession with holding things. She'll gaze into the sky and cup her hands toward the airplane say, "Hold it?" She sees a dog on television, reaches her hands in supplication and says, "Hold it?" Tonight, right before bed, she looked through a book, spotted a picture of a newborn baby and scooped her hand toward it and said, "Hold it?"

Then she cried. She cried and cried and cried. "Hold it! Hold it! Hold it!" I kept saying, "That's a pretty picture. You can't hold the baby. It's just a picture." Her heart was broken, though, because she couldn't "hold it."

I want to hold stuff, too, sometimes, stuff that just can't be held. I want to hold the summer, I want to hold Babygirl's babyhood, I want to hold the sweet moments in life. But all you can do sometimes is gaze and memorize and, occasionally, cry.

If you can, though, hold it. Hold on tight. You never know when summer will leave without even saying good-bye.