Diaper Swappers

Freezing Time

Last weekend we took our kids to a popular indoor water park, Kalahari.  It was the last weekend before our oldest started kindergarten, and we had spent all summer working at our local medieval faire, so I thought they deserved it.  Ok, ok, yeah, I REALLY wanted to go to a temperature controlled indoor pool and lazy river-you caught me!  Not to mention the hotel room with beds I don’t have to make, and the spa, and the coffee shop, and the…uh, where was I?  Oh yeah, we wanted to take the KIDS to Kalahari for THEIR enjoyment.

I don’t know if it was the foreboding first day of  big kid school, or me just being a mom, but there were so many times over the weekend that I wished I could freeze time.  Their hoops and hollers when they realized where we were going, and their ice cream beards and mustaches made me laugh out loud.  The drops of water in their hair and eyelashes after going through the waterfall on the lazy river made my heart melt.  K covering her eyes with her hands and peeking through her fingers when she knew she was going to get sprayed was precious, along with her yelling “hurry up, hurry up” for me to put her goggles on before the bucket dumped water on her head.  Running up the steps and playing with all the different sprayers and buckets made me feel like a kid again!

I think this is why I’m such a big picture person.  I take pictures everywhere we go, and lots of them!  I love having a tangible memory from everywhere we’ve gone and everything we’ve done.  Knowing that I can never go back to this time, with their innocence and naivety, makes me incredibly sad.  Having these pictures to look back on, and remember the fun they had, and the things they did, makes it a little easier to let go.   It made it a little easier to see through the tears as my 6 year old “baby’ climbed those giant steps on that big yellow bus, and rode away…all the while, hearing the shutter clicking away.