Today will be a busy day. We’re transitioning between two houses, moving car-loads of “stuff.” There’s school, preschool, work, laundry. The usual.

Today will be a warm, beautiful day. The 80′s in October? After the perpetual rain we endured a week ago, we’ll take it! And we’ll love every moment of sunshine.

Today will also be a very special day.

Because it is my oldest son’s birthday.

Yes, he has to go to school, and I have errands to run and boxes to move.

But there will be an undercurrent throughout the day.

A constant reminder of the blessing that this young man is to me…a joyful celebration of his life and the fact that I get to be his mom…a thankfulness for another year with him, watching him grow and mature.

Happy Birthday, C. I hope your day is as wonderful as you are. I’m so glad to be your mom!

Our pastor has a habit of making me cry on Mother’s Day. I don’t know if it’s something he plans or if it just happens. But in the course of his Mother’s Day sermon, he always shares a story, plays a song, shows a video clip, or does something else that reminds me how very fleeting the time I have with my kids truly is.

The tears well up, suddenly, and one or two fall before I can stop them.

Oh, I know, sometimes it doesn’t seem fleeting, when you’re in the midst of motherhood. Sometimes the days as a mom seem downright long. The days when we’re caring for a sick child, praying through a conflict, agonizing over a kid’s struggles. The rainy days stuck inside with a busy toddler, when the car is in the shop. The nights we sit up, waiting for a teen to get home.

But when we can shift our perspective, see the big picture…we realize that these years fly by. They’ll be gone before we know it.

This past Mother’s Day, our pastor gave an illustration that has really stuck with me.

(Perhaps because it involved large quantities of M&Ms. M&Ms have a way of staying with me.)

He set out several clear jars filled with varying amounts of M&Ms. Each M&M represented one week.

The first jar was full, and illustrated all the weeks we have in store when a child is first born. The time we can spend with this new little person stretches out before us, seemingly endless. There is boundless potential, plenty of time to do special things, opportunities to teach, to show love, to just be together.

Subsequent jars held fewer and fewer M&Ms — representing when our kids go off to kindergarten, middle school, high school… Each milestone brings a sense of joy, but also reminds us of the swift passage of time.

Our pastor ended with an empty jar, symbolizing that time when our kids leave home, going off to college or whatever comes next…when our time with them (at least the consistent, daily, we-still-live-in-the-same-house kind of time) is, for the most part, done.

I’m not yet at the empty-jar stage. I still have six years before C.(12) leaves for college. But the pastor had a jar representing where we are right now.

312.

That’s how many M&Ms were in the jar that represented our now.

312 weeks. That’s how much time you have with a child from the time they begin 7th grade until the time they begin college.

312.

I can’t get that number out of my head. It’s not a tiny number, but it’s certainly not a huge number either.

C. started 7th grade this year. To be honest, it feels a bit surreal. Wasn’t I just in 7th grade? Wasn’t I just struggling to resist peer pressure, and figuring out how to make friends in this strange new world called “adolescence”?

It’s hard to believe that I have a 7th-grader. And harder still to acknowledge that I only have 312 more weeks.

Some of those weeks will zip past in a blur. Some will languish, hanging around for a while. But one by one, they’ll pass.

I pray God would give me the wisdom and love and discipline to live them well, with my very favorite 7th-grader.

I truly intended to quickly finish reporting about our trip to Canada this summer. But if I lived up to all my good intentions, well… this blog would have a lot more posts on it. That’s for sure.

And since I’m sure that there are only a few of you (primarily relatives) who have been sitting on the edge of your seat, anxious to read about the rest of our vacation, I will do my best to not drag things out much further.

I hereby commit to finishing up the tale of our trip in this post.  So it might be a bit of a whirlwind. Ready? Here we go.

[You can read part 1 of our vacation story here if you need a refresher.]

***

Tuesday morning found us hopping aboard the subway…

…and then hiking several blocks to get to the lovely Casa Loma. Casa Loma is a castle, right in Toronto. It provides self-guided tours, beautiful architecture, relaxing grounds, and even a secret passageway. We all thoroughly enjoyed exploring Casa Loma. Chad and C.(12) enjoyed learning about the history of the place.

I liked all the neat features — especially these built in bookshelves. (And yes, please, I would like some just like these. Thanks.)

L.(5)’s favorite part was that we were all given these nifty personal radios. When you entered a room, you looked for a sign with a number on it. Punch the number into your handheld radio-thing and — ta-da! — it would tell you all about the room. Pretty cool. And L. didn’t feel restricted by the numbers on signs. He spent his morning punching any number he pleased into his radio, and intently listened to whatever story or information spilled out.

We finished off Tuesday with pizza at a restaurant near our hotel, and some delicious dessert, since it was my birthday. And a wonderful birthday it was.

***

Wednesday was a day of exploration.

We checked out the PATH — a network of underground shops, food courts, and pathways running under a good portion of the city.

We explored Old Town Toronto, including the St. Lawrence Market, which sells any kind of food you can imagine. C.(12) was particularly intrigued by offerings such as Ostrich Thighs and Kangaroo Loin. (Um…no thanks.)

We also visited a charming bookstore while in Old Town Toronto (read more about the bookstore here).

And in the afternoon, we took the boys to Medieval Times for lunch. They loved it. Yes, we had to eat with no utensils. Yes, our lunch was eaten amidst sword fights, jousting, horses, deception, and special effects. And it was a show very much made for boys to watch and enjoy. (Also, don’t ask me about L’s expression in this picture. He says he was “smiling and scowling at the same time.” So there you have it.)

***

Thursday morning found us on the subway once again (special thanks to Chad, who figured out how to get us wherever we wanted to go while in Toronto) as we went to visit the Royal Ontario Museum.

Chad, C., and I probably could have stayed there all day, exploring every nook and cranny. But while L. appreciated that they had special screens all around to teach him about animals and minerals and history…

…here’s what he looked like after a couple hours in the museum:

So we headed back to our hotel to rest for a while before our final planned outing: a “Hippo Tour.”

The Hippo Tour showed us parts of Toronto that we’d not yet seen, and then splashed out into Lake Ontario, where we paddled around for a while. Overall, it was a nice close to our week, giving us a bigger-picture view of the city than we’d gotten from our isolated outings.

There’s more I could tell you about. More little outings here and there, delicious cookies from the St. Lawrence Market, finding a delightful stationery store in the PATH. But that would take way too long.

In short, Toronto is a beautiful city, and we could have spent weeks there, discovering and exploring and learning. All four of us had a wonderful time, and C. is already wondering how and when he can get back to Toronto. Definitely a favorite family vacation!