These bittersweet moments

This time of year makes me feel so wistful, it almost hurts.

It's sweet, mostly. A little bittersweet. There's something about the smell of these first summer days that has me remembering all the other summers of my life. Walking with my babies to the park, the sun on my bare arms this afternoon becomes the sun on my arms during finals week at the end of my freshman year of college as I walked to Dairy Queen with my friends and thought about packing up my first dorm room. The way my hair brushes against my neck reminds me of the afternoon I chopped off all my long hair (and in those days, it was blonde, like my daughter's) shortly before I graduated from high school. Some things are constant: the smells of grass and backyard barbecues, the sounds of lawn mowers and sprinklers and birds. The way the late-afternoon light filters through the trees at the park. It's the summer of 2010, but it's also, say, the summer of 2007, when Suzannah and I would take the same walk almost every single afternoon, shadows sliding across the sidewalk, the same scent of the evergreens in the air. We used to stop at Metropolitan Market, simply because it was cool and it was on our way home. We'd wander the aisles and sample cheese or fresh fruit before heading home to make dinner. Metro Market's closing this past winter makes me sad not so much because I'll miss their coffee or their deli (although I will), but because I'll miss the possibility of wandering through with my girl -- and, now, my boy -- on these summer afternoons.

Three years ago I wrote in Suzannah's journal, We exist purely in the moment: this July sun, this breeze, this beautiful life in which time becomes something both wispy and almost tangible, like a slice of peach. I wonder what I did with myself before I had you. I wonder why I didn't take enough notice of the moments in which I simply existed in a warm afternoon, or thought that it somehow wasn't enough.

I had a moment of melancholy this afternoon as we walked, the kind that almost always comes with nostalgia: a longing for those moments that have become perfect in my memory, knowing they can never exactly be repeated. I've been thinking a lot about last summer and being pregnant with Isaac, which was one of the sweetest times of my life. (Memory conveniently edits out the parts about feeling exhausted and overheated, or having to take Zofran in order to combat the "morning" sickness that never really ended.) I think, I'll never have that again, in exactly that way.

Of course, what I have now is just as sweet: a baby in my arms and his big sister's hand in mine. Quieter evenings have been replaced with chaos and noise that is joyful as often as it is frustrating. And I also know that someday, I will remember these days with deep longing too (and probably not far into the future, as I often feel deeply nostalgic for Isaac's newbornness just six short-yet-momentous months ago -- even though I wouldn't trade what I have now, the happy shrieks, the cuddles, the joyful baby my second child has become).

Next weekend, we'll load up the car and head out for our annual road trip. We're going early this year, and we're driving all the way to Minneapolis. We haven't driven that far in years, but I know it's going to flood me with the same feelings of nostalgia and deep longing that most of our road trips do, because we'll be tracing the routes that lead us both back to where we've lived most of our lives, both separately and together. There are memories on the road, and depending on where we're at I can slip so easily back into being twenty-one, or fifteen, or twelve.

Another reason I'm feeling more than a little nostalgic: Today, my little girl had her very first haircut. Yes, she made it all the way past her fourth birthday without having so much as a trim. But she was practically bald for the first two years of her life, so -- I just haven't been able to bring myself to get it cut until now. And I love her hair, her baby curls at the end, a wild golden mass trailing down her back.

It really was time. When it's wet, it nearly reaches her butt. It's hard to rinse in the tub. She'll hardly let me touch it with a brush, much less let me do things with it (although it should be noted that her daycare providers would send her home in cute little braids and things all the time). If we're doing an art project or something, she'll let me tie it back in a pony tail so she doesn't get paint or glue in it, but as soon as she's finished she'll yank it right out. (Funnily enough, when she was two and her hair was just beginning to grow, when she had just enough to pin back with little clips, she couldn't get enough of her hair bows. Grandma Griffith gave her a card with about a dozen colored hair bows, and for awhile she wouldn't go to bed at night until every single one of them was clipped in her hair. By the time she was a flower girl in her uncle's wedding, shortly before her third birthday, she allowed us to clip her hair back with a pretty bow to match her dress -- and it stayed in for about five minutes.)

But even though it's this wild mass of blonde tangles half the time, I really do love her hair. I love how it flows behind her when she runs, the way it sticks to her cheeks when she's sweaty or just waking up. I love the way she brushes it impatiently out of her face. (I don't particularly love the way she hollers, "OW, OW!" if I so much as hold a brush near her head, but whatever.)

I haven't wanted to push the trim, though. I don't really want her hair to be a source of power struggles, since we have enough of those. I wanted her to be involved in the decision to have it trimmed. We've been talking about it with her for awhile, casually suggesting that it would be easier to take care of if we just trimmed a bit off the ends. We might as well have suggested that she shave her head. In other words, the answer has always been a pretty vehement NO.

Until today. We made a trip to the SuperMall to exchange one of her birthday presents (her auntie and grandma think alike!) and I had a brainstorm, since there's a place just for kids to get their hair cut. Long story short, I asked Suzannah if she was up for a trim today, and then I talked about how great it would feel, and then I bribed her with a new toy. Hey, it worked for getting her to poop in the potty.

She frowned and said, "I don't wanna get my hair cut."

"Okay," I said. "That's fine if you're not ready. Maybe next time."

We walked on. A few moments passed, and suddenly she said, "Okay, okay. I'll get my hair cut."

And that's how we found ourselves inside this little kids' salon. It appealed to Suzannah right away because a.) there was a little corner filled with toys, books, and a play kitchen, b.) the "chairs" are more like rides -- Suzannah could choose between a car and an airplane, for instance; and c.) there are two strategically-placed televisions playing kids' videos. Suzannah wound up flying an airplane in front of Finding Nemo (how perfect) while her hair was trimmed and I looked on with a lump in my throat.

It's silly, but -- I kind of wasn't ready. I didn't expect her to say yes. I WASN'T READY FOR MY FOUR-YEAR-OLD TO LOSE HER LITTLE BABY CURLS THAT HAVE BEEN ON HER HEAD SINCE SHE CAME OUT OF ME. The stylist was undoubtedly used to this sort of thing; she reassured me that she'd keep Suzannah's natural wave and just take off enough to clean up the ends and make it a bit more manageable. And she saved some for me in a little bag, attached to a card that listed the date and which chair she sat in.

Suzannah was a pro. She didn't need any cheerleading from me; she was perfectly content to pretend to fly her little airplane and watch her video. She didn't seem to mind a perfect stranger combing her hair, much less snipping it off and adding a cute little braid when she was finished. (Do you think I was allowed to brush it this afternoon, though?)

She looked so grown-up to me as she sat there with her hair pinned up above the little cape, and at the same time, she was very much my little girl. My baby girl.

Sometimes she'll say something so simple like, "Okay, that makes sense," in a conversation (which is so cute coming from the mouth of a four-year-old), and suddenly I'm reeling because I understand that I am talking to a person who has her own opinions and can articulate them. Who can sigh with frustration and roll her eyes at me. Who holds a mirror up to my face every single day -- which is so, so profoundly humbling.

And sometimes I'll look at Isaac, who is such a different child, but when he laughs, I'll see the ways in which he and Suzannah share an unmistakable connection. There are moments when I see my little girl in the face of my baby boy, and that, too, is profound in ways I cannot yet describe.

I just want to keep and hold each moment of their lives. I never want to forget what it feels like to hold the weight of my sleeping child against my shoulder, or to hear the sound of their giggles. I never want to lose the memory of Suzannah's small, warm hand inside my own or the way Isaac sleeps against my chest. I want to remember the way I felt today when I watched my little girl's baby curls fall to the floor and the heartbreaking mix of love and pride and sadness because these perfect moments do pass, no matter how much I try to hold on.