Coffee, Earrings and Mustaches

With Julia's third birthday coming up, we have been talking about getting older and growing up.  Most of the time Julia is excited about growing up and proudly talks about being a big girl now.  Every once in a while, she will cling to her status as the youngest and talk about how she is still our baby.  One night she asked me if she could get earrings like mama, and I told her when she is older, she can get her ears pierced. She asked if she could please, please pretty please have pink earrings and I said that would be fine by me.  Another morning AJ and Julia were watching Joe shave when AJ started talking about how he would have a mustache one day (he is convinced it will be in second grade.)  And Davey has been interested in coffee lately, asking me if he can help make the coffee and how old he needs to be to drink it.

So one night at dinner, Julia put all of these things together in her fascinating, soon-to-be-three-year-old mind and said "Mama, one day when we're all growed up, I will have pink earrings and the boys will have mustaches and we will all sit around and drink coffee with you, Mama!"  It was like a momentary glimpse into a time warp.  Usually it is hard for me to picture the kids all grown up, but with these little details to focus on, suddenly I could picture them all as college students home for winter break as we sit around with coffee.