The Mommies' Diaries…Parenting, One Blog at a Time.

Have you ever had one of those moments where one day you feel like you’re 30 and then the next morning you feel like you’re 35?  Oh yeah.  I’m definitely having one of those moments.  Only, this time I woke up and I felt like I just jumped ten years into the future.

My oldest daughter just closed escrow on her first home with her fiance’.  I think they’re personally trying to put me into the retirement home.  Less than a year ago, her fiance’ asked me for her hand in marriage.  A moment I had visualized for a long time.  But, that’s another ‘Hot Tub Time Machine’ story…

Looking for a home with my daughter and her fiance’ wasn’t bad.  It was fun driving around, going inside of homes that were staged with someone else’s miniature furniture.  I’m 5′ 5″ so these places make me feel like I’m in the land of giants and I’m the giant, so that’s always fun.

When the day came where her fiance’ had to get to work and she needed someone to go with her to the final appointment of the day to look at a home with the realtor, I stepped it up.  Dads, just because they grow older doesn’t mean you get to stop doing what you should be doing.  See my older blog Being There.

When we pulled up to the house, I got out of the passenger side (one of the perks of getting older is that you don’t have to do all the driving everywhere anymore!), looked at the home, and I KNEW, this would be the house.

Walking through the house with her, she visualized different stages of the next five years of her life in the house.  Dinner parties on the back deck with music playing through the speakers mounted on the top of the arbor.  The office they would maintain their budget in and invest in money-making ventures together.  The importance of picking the right room for the baby room (I blocked that one out).  That was hard enough.

But then they closed on this house three days ago.  They were tremendously happy.  A vast difference from the mood swings buying a home can put you in.  To see them jumping up and down coming out of their skin, literally, made me happy.

That night when I went to bed, I thought about the trips to Home Depot packing her around on my back.  We bought wood to build a front porch together.  We laid concrete for the back patio and side walkway together.  We went to downtown street fairs together.  Dads, there is nothing you can’t do with the babies!

I thought about the trips to McDonald’s for Happy Meals.  The number of people, young and old, would come over to tell me how beautiful and well behaved she was, was incredible.  It felt like I had a celebrity with me at all times.

I recalled trips to the Farmer’s Market at the College of San Mateo on Saturday mornings to grab fresh Asiago Cheese bread or that cinammon twist she looked forward to so much.

Our trips to Pelican Beach (aka Poplar Beach) in Half Moon Bay, lounging on white sand and taking pictures of the contrasting blue skies and green trees.  A tradition we still practice to this day, only now her fiance’ comes along.

And we loved little trips to Red Robins and Jeffreys Burgers.  There’s nothing like a good burger and some strawberry lemonade on a perfect summer day.

Then, I made the mistake of falling asleep and waking up the following morning.  When I got up, I simply felt different.  My bones ached.  Arthritis was kicking in.  And I forgot things.  All symptoms that I had aged 10 years!  Later that day, after taking a shower to clear my head, all the aches went away and I began to remember things again.  Like the fact that my youngest daughter had, indeed, grew up.