It was a warm summer evening when we met my brother and his sons at a basketball court. I noticed immediately that his 3-year-old was along for the fun. Our teens and tweens weren’t going to be able to play much basketball with such a little boy in the game—and he probably wouldn’t enjoy it much himself.
“I remember a playground just around the corner,” I said. “Do you think anyone would like to go with me to see if it’s there?”
“We can try,” my brother said, “but he might not go with you.” We hadn’t seen each other since Christmas 2019, so I was a stranger to this child.
But his preschooler’s head whipped around.
“A playground?” he said. “Where?”
And off we went, the 3-year-old running as fast as he could while his slow aunt just tried to keep him within sight.
We found the playground, and my nephew started exploring, climbing the wrong way up the slide, trying the ladders, and slipping into tunnels. As he went, he commented on what he saw, sharing the experience with me, telling me to climb up too, and offering me an invisible piece of blackberry pie.
As I watched him play, I remembered other days with other 3-year-old boys, and it made me smile. I’ve spent plenty of hours on playgrounds with toddlers who grew into preschoolers and then elementary-aged children and then the middle schoolers they are now. In a distant corner of my mind, I even remember playing on playgrounds with this little one’s father, way back when he, too, was a curly-headed little boy with a big imagination.
Time is a funny thing. There are days I miss the cuddly toddlers my children once were, and there are days I rejoice that they are the pseudo-mature young men that they are. I’m not in a rush for anyone to grow quickly, but I also marvel at the people they are becoming.
Especially this past week, as we have seen family members we hadn’t seen for such a very long time, the growth of my nephews and nieces astounds me. Children are so much taller in person than on Zoom. I was stunned the other day when I turned around and saw that my older son is taller than his grandmother. Of course, I knew rationally that he was taller—since he’s taller than I am and I’m taller than she is—but seeing it in person took my breath away. He used to go just past her knee.
Children grow fast. Time slips by faster every year. And pandemic time seems to be its own mystery, plodding along slowly while you count the days away from loved ones and then somehow gone in an instant when you realize the children have grown so much.
The 3-year-old at my side was moving as quickly as time itself, zipping down the slides, leaping over mud puddles, and running to find a better stick that could serve as a good sword for his game. And I was just along for the ride, taking in every minute and enjoying his imaginative play.
I wonder how old he will be when we are next together.
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