He asked me for the keys to my car last night. He was off on a date with his girl. I noticed when he made his request that he no longer had to look up at his Dad. He's over six feet now and indeed a young man in every respect. My goodness, where did my little boy go? It seems so short a time since I first looked at him, rolled in a blanket in the nurses arms. It was the 22nd of December and I was called at the office by the doctor. My first son had been born. I rushed to the hospital to see him, and without a doubt, it was the biggest thrill of my life to see my first born, not yet an hour old. "The first three months are the hardest," they told me. They were. Three A.M. feedings, teeth coming in all at once, diapers to be changed , colds, a mild case of measles, all those multitude of worries that new parents have. But soon, he was crawling about on the floor, getting into everything he could reach, putting into his mouth anything he could lift. Then one day, that first step. Oh the years pass so quickly. Little brothers come along, and soon the first born is off on his own with small playmates, over fences, into mud puddles, up on roofs and soon, too soon, off to school. The years pass and soon you are standing behind a backstop watching him play first base in the little league finals. You are sitting next to him at the Boy Scout Father and Son Banquet. Together you sit on the Chesterfield pouring over problems he has brought home from school. You notice as you rough-house on the lawn that his grip is much stronger this summer and you start to wonder if he really can lick you. And then, as if in the turning of a page, he is asking you for the keys to your car and you realize that your little boy is a man. My goodness...I wonder where all those years have gone?
