Missing Your Children

     Page Twenty-Five.
     Do you want to know one thing they don't warn you about prior to becoming a parent (or surrogate parent)? You'll end up caring almost as much for your kid's friends as for your own kids.While living with and taking care of the Shapiro boys I came to care for many of their friends deeply. I've already mentioned Spanky. There were, of course, many more. I found out last month that another friend whom I saw frequently, Eliza, was pregnant. I heard this news through the grapevine.
     To hear news of weddings, births and new jobs of your kids' childhood friends is glorious, it really is. It's also bittersweet. It just re-enforces the life cycle. Believe me, I know the life cycle. I take care of many old people in addition to the childcare I provide.
     You know what? Today's blog is rambling. I started out writing about children's friends and now I'm talking about the life cycle of the human being. Perhaps I'm in a mood. Watching children grow up and move away is depressing as hell. It just is. When the Shapiro boys come home and then leave, I have deep psychological difficulties. I've also told the Queen Mother (mom of the three princes and one princess whom I currently nanny ) that she really needs to savor all the time she has with her kids now 'cause one day in twenty years she's going to look back and cry, wishing they were little again. With all their fights, with all their screaming and yelling, with all their tantrums and foot stomping, in twenty years those memories are going to bring tears. At least they will for me. Yeah! I'm so lucky.
     Love your kids while you have 'em. Love your children's friends while they're around. They grow up so fast, it leaves your head spinning like a roller coaster, wondering... when did they enter middle school? Five minutes ago they were in Kindergarten. Before you know it they're away at college. It really does happen that fast.
     I was very lucky, I became really good friends with the Shapiro boys. This, in spite of that darned teenaged era. I basically lived with very good friends for those eight years. Perhaps that's one reason I miss them so much. Because I don't know how it's going to play out with the princes, I really chose to just value my time with them like it's my lasts moments on earth. If, hypothetically, I end up nannying them until Fauntleroy graduates from Shaker Heights High in 2023, I'll have that many more memories to be grateful for.
     A friend recently asked if I ever missed having children. Was she kidding? All the parental energies that could possibly have dammed up in my male system never even had a chance. Not a single molecule of unspent parental desire exists in me. I became a live-in nanny at age twenty for crying out loud. Then I continued off and on (mostly on) until age thirty-one. More recently, I was asked to get back into nannying at age forty-six. And the potential exists for me to continue until age sixty-two (depending upon what my future holds). That's a million years of memories and worries and concern and joys and jubilations... all about children: children whom I've been deeply involved with.
    And time with kids really does go that fast. I know this. Value the seconds, even the rough ones. In fact, twenty years later, it's the rough ones make the best Thanksgiving Day stories.
     I think some future blog will be about the fact that I'm not a normal nanny. And parents and bystanders have noticed this. I don't actually even stop and acknowledge the term baby-sitter. I go straight to "Foster Parent", without passing Go, without collecting $200.00. But really, that's for another time.     
     (My God, today's blog was aimless. Oh, well.)