While I was chatting with my son on the phone yesterday, and my daughter was listening to the discussion (I aways have my phone on speaker) he said something that startled me. Why did we grew up so fast? he said;   a flash of memory took me back to the days when we used to return from work, and gather them all in the kitchen, talking to them in arabic, English and french, discussing science and sports. We would make dinner, they will help too, and by eight all of them would go to sleep, while I would read a book or watch TV with my husband.  I still remember when we used to go out during the weekend and during the holidays either for activities, visiting malls or art shows; I also still remember our trips to France, Holland, Swedon and many countries that we visited prior to living in New Zealand. The flights to New Zealand were long, but we all enjoyed them. We would land in Thailand or Malasiya and do a bit of tiring shopping, or eat exotic fruits.  In those five years, we went on picnics, visited farms and ate endless amounts of fruits.  We would go to art shows, craft shows, school camps and drove top to bottom of that baeutiful country. All of this is still solid in my memory and it seems that its still solid in their memory.

When they were young they would help in house chores and kitchen chores, the work is split between all of us, and the teaching is limited to me as my husband doesn’t want to tread in those waters and prefers to read his books or watch his TV shows.  I will be busy making my jams, pickles from the produce we picked in those farms we visited or I will also be busy making cakes or tomorrows lunches while teaching them. Then I will retire to do my studies or talk to friends on the house phone (yes I did have a mobile then, if you are interested to know).

Those days had gone, however, thinking back about them fills my heart with great gratitude, as we did have a great life! a life full of activities, trips, learning and sightseeing.  We will not replace these memories with anything else in my life, they are my memory treasures.

Now I find out that even them are thinking of those days, were work is not imposed on them, and now that they are repeating the circle of life for their own families, I wish that they will have more memories to treasure than mine, so they don’t regret that their own kids had grown so fast.