Got to spend a lot of Quality Family Time the last week with my kids and wife, and on more than one occasion I was reminded of how quickly we all grow, change, move on.  Another one of those milestone events happened, recently, and as we approach this holiday season it will be different than any of the ones we’ve shared with our kids before.  Our youngest is now 11, and is approaching Christmas with a different look at St. Nick… and I will love the holidays as much as ever, and the family time… but a small loss of innocence can change a lot of things.

“Lost, yesterday, somewhere between Sunrise and Sunset, two golden hours, each set with sixty diamond minutes. No reward is offered, for they are gone forever.”
-Horace Mann

We watch our kids grow.  We take so much pride in their simplest accomplishments, and pray that they grow to be better, smarter, wiser, more successful than us… but that pride in each step of their growth is sometimes mixed with just a touch of sadness, of loss… not, I think, for who they are now, but for who they won’t be again – and maybe who WE won’t be because of that.

If a child is to keep alive his inborn sense of wonder without any such gift from the fairies, he needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with him the joy, excitement and mystery of the world we live in.
-Rachel Carson