Where am I?

The last couple of days here in the Anderson home have been all abuzz about prom.   My oldest son is going through all of the hassle of trying to figure out dates etc etc.  It has been interesting to say the least.  We headed out a couple of nights ago to buy him a suit for the event.  I know, why not rent a tux?  Prom has become such a diminished event in the system today.  It is still considered formal I guess, but so are the homecoming and royalty dances in our school districts.  Some do rent tuxes, and yet some show up in jeans!  While we are not renting at tux, jeans are absolutely not an option,  we are investing in a suit.  My oldest son has always asked about suits, so I figured now is as good a time as any to purchase one for him.  The whole process was fun.  Watching him go through the racks, trying to decide which style he liked most.  Then came the time for him to try on the complete suit.

DS #1 takes his find into the dressing room and surfaces later as an amazingly handsome young man.  I nearly lost my footing when I saw that young man standing before me beaming in what he had long waited to put on.. his suit.  I think my heart must have leapt into my throat as I had to swallow what seemed like a large knot.  Mind you, I have done prom before and watched my beautiful princesses emerge from their dressing chambers in gowns that simply made them shine. I remember too the time they appeared in those graduation gowns with their caps adorning their tresses of hair like crowns.  Both moments caused me to take a deep breath and marvel.  Yet, this particular moment knocked me off balance a bit.  I looked over at DS #2 sitting in a chair outside of the waiting room and realized, there will not be too many more of these moments.

How did I get here?  How did I get from being a mother of four hustling bustling little ones to the young man standing before me in a three piece suit patiently waiting for my response, his younger brother, who will soon be the young man standing before me, sitting in the chair sharing fashion advice, and his two older sisters  out beginning their lives as young independent ladies?  It feels like I fell asleep just yesterday exhausted from a long day of chasing what I thought must be the most energetic four I had ever come across, and woke up to this magical moment.

The last couple of days, these moment have been replaying in my mind like the movies on my mother's film projector that would capture my siblings and I doing our crazy stunts.   My heart has smiled and shed tears as those images have flitted their way through my mind.  Many warm wonderful memories are forever emblazoned on that 33 mm film stored in that projector deep in my brain.  My heart will play them as often as it chooses, and I will stand in the current moment and say yes my child... you look fabulous.