Losing the Fuzz

I know - another eaglet photo. It's almost as bad as the adorable kitten videos I used to post. But watching these guys has been addicting. I don't know what I'll do when they fly the nest!!

Anyhow, today I've really noticed how much they're growing. Their baby fuzz is growing out and their feathers are growing in. Every now and then one of them will extend their wings, getting ready for that day when they will extend them to fly. They still have a ways to go, but soon their wings will take on different colors and they will start to look like their parents. The babies are growing up. I know, another soliloquy about children growing up. You better believe it, because the older I get, it seems the quicker children are growing up. For instance ...

Lindley has several teeth loose.  She hasn't lost any yet, but she's getting there. When she loses them, she's going to look completely different. Not just because she's lost teeth, but because all of a sudden she's going to look older. Like she's growing up. Too fast, at least for me. It's hard to believe she's starting kindergarten, especially since it seems like yesterday she was just a little bald-headed baby with no teeth.

When we're little, it's easy to see the milestones that mark we're getting older. We get taller, we get smarter, we lose teeth, we get bigger clothes, and so on. When we become adults, the milestones aren't quite as apparent - at least until we really start to get older. We might lose our hair, or our teeth, or our ability to do certain things. But I have to wonder - what else are we (or should we) also be losing?

Shouldn't we lose some of our ideas that we formed earlier? If we had kids, we certainly had ideas about how to raise them - do we need to stick with them now that they're decades old? We certainly had our share of opinions about everything - do they still apply now that the world is changing, whether we want it to or not? Maybe we used to hide behind a cloak of privacy, afraid to say anything in fear of losing family or friends - as our time here gets shorter, is it time to shed that cloak and say what we think and feel?

I wish I knew the answer. All I can really say is that we're all growing. And maybe we all need to show growth. Maybe we all need to be shedding something, because we really just don't need it anymore. And maybe something better will come in its place.

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Today is a gift because: providing Everley's school taxi service; Everley and Steve playing outside; a two-mile slow amble in the 'hood