blink and you'll miss it

Not so long ago {about two weeks, if my memory serves me correctly}, I was filling out the enrolment forms for my Levi-pie for prep. Prep.

About two pages into the form, I got to the questions such as: 'can your child speak in descriptive sentences using joining words' {does he ever stop talking?}, 'can s/he follow directions witih more than one instruction?' {only if the directions don't include picking up any of his toys}, etc.

These were quickly followed by the questions about my child's attributes, what we hope he will acheive at the school, and it's always here that I start to stumble. Three little lines on a very official-looking form to describe my little guy.

We've just taken the training wheels off his bike, and he is so proud. He can cook toast and eggs "all by himself" {we stand together at the stove, Levi-pie atop a chair}. Should I write how wonderfully kind he is? How he has his Daddy's love of sport and his Mummy's love of books? That he adores being read The Twits, that he knows more about cars at four years of age than I do? He is mud, and sand, and handprints on the walls and stones in his pockets. He's train rides and pancakes and a fierce desire to enjoy every second of every day. So much adventure and desire to explore in his body- and yet still, that need to reach for my hand as he discovers his world.

He doesn't like the combination of dark + loud. He's fiercely protective of his little sisters- sometimes, to a fault. He will no longer eat garlic bread as it contains "green stuff". He never has any idea where his shoes are. Ever. He generally forgets to write the 'e' in his name whenever he writes it.

When he was a wee newborn, well-meaning oldies used to approach me in the supermarket. They'd eye off my disheveled hair, the black-under-eyes that could never quite be concealed, and the newborn getting more and more hysterical-with-reflux in the sling. "These are the best days of your life," they'd say. "You'll forget the sleep deprivation all too soon. You'll see- you'll blink, and he'll be at school."

Just for the record: walking around a supermarket with a hysterical newborn while smelling of vomit were not the best days of my life {dear god, I hope not}. He would always cry in the car on the way home as if I was taking to him with an axe. Then I'd cry, too.

I have absolutely, emphatically, not forgotten the sleep deprivation. Nothing shocked me quite so much about motherhood as just how bad sleep deprivation could actually be. He wouldn't sleep without being rocked, or being on my chest. Or being rocked on my chest. Eventually, he wouldn't sleep without holding my hand. {And now, despite the proclamations from the GP that he'd be in my bed until he was eighteen...mmmhmmm, I know so many teenagers still in their parent's beds...he goes to bed at 7 and sleeps the whole night through, has done for years}.

And the past nearly-five years of his life have felt like....well, five years. And yet- I'll blink, and he'll be slinging an oversized backpack on his back, and we'll walk into his classroom.