Soap Bubble

It was the bra that hit me hardest.

I've always known that my children would grow up; that, apparently, is the one consistency among children. And of course family and friends with older kids have always helpfully advised me to enjoy the children being children because, like that big sale down at the Honda dealer, "when it's gone, it's gone".  I suppose I'd never really taken this advice entirely to heart - no matter how final the sale is, you know there'll be another - but I looked over my shoulder the other day and saw my own youth smiling and waving back at me in the distance.  Now my daughter is outpacing hers.  Incrementally, yes, but perceptibly.

In my mind, Caroline's still a toddler in the sunshine, squishy-cute, blowing bubbles and catching them again. But in real life, she's a preteen.  Her limbs have lost their childish bandiness and she really needs a daily shower.  She has a social life from which I'm excluded, and a private life inside her head that I can only guess at.  I've thought I'd adjusted to these changes well, but they've been so gradual as to be entirely unnoticeable day to day or even week to week, so the adjustment was easy.

When I left for work yesterday she didn't own a bra.  When I came home last night, she did.  And that suddenly, while I was commuting or eating lunch or composing another email, she's gone and changed.

Even now, when she laughs, she's the messy-haired toddler who's caught a bubble - it quivers, soapy and spectral in the sun. And then it's gone.