As I sit here writing this column, in our cluttered family office, family photos and memorabilia from twenty-five years of marriage and over twenty-three years of parenting surround me. There are pictures of the progression and growth of our little family. Individual shots of each of the kids, others with one or two or all three of them together and others with all five of us at ever changing times in our lives.

There is the paperweight Meghan made, for me, in grade three. A baseball signed by the Toronto Blue Jays that still makes Nolan smile. The beautiful clock that Emily built in IA Class ticks away reminding me of how fleeting time can be. It moves ever forward, leaving memories locked in our minds or on display on desks and walls.

Sometimes we’d like time to slow to a crawl and sometimes we’d like it to move a lot faster. Our family is now in the position that we don’t know which of these speeds we want. We are anxious to see our son and brother set off for the bright lights of Hollywood, to see if he can make the most out of this tremendous opportunity he has earned. (Most say he won the role in the Donna on Demand movie on the Red Paperclip Weekend, I say he earned it! You say po-tay-to, I say po-tah-to). Anyway, as anxious as we are for him to leave, we are filled with the feeling that it has come too fast.

I suppose, any milestone in a child’s life is like that. The first tooth, the first step, potty training, (okay not potty training, we’re just happy when that day comes!) or the first and last days of school can be seen as happy achievements and sad reminders that our babies are growing up. Not to be too simplistic, but a large part of parenthood can be summed up with these two words-mixed emotions.

On Wednesday the 31st of January our son, Nolan, will be boarding a plane with Corbin Bersen and flying toward one of the greatest adventures in his lifetime! Kinda surreal, don’t ya think?! While bursting with pride at his accomplishment and knowing he’s in great hands, we still feel trepidation as we send our nineteen-year-old out into the world. We know it’s time but, man, it came so soon.

So far, there have been a lot of milestones in the lives of our three children. Some baby steps and some huge commitments. If I am asked to pass on any of my “Old Man’s Knowledge”, which, by the way, doesn’t happen that often, my advice to young parents is to savour every moment, each milestone. Try, and it’s not easy, to not look forward too much. Try to hold off the, “ I can hardly waits”. You know, “I can hardly wait ‘til they’re crawling, walking, riding a bike, graduating, flying off to LA in a plane”. It’ll happen. Just wait for it.

While trying to pick a quote for this week’s column I couldn’t choose between these two, so I put them both in.

“The central struggle of parenthood is to let our hopes for our children outweigh our fears,”- Helen Goodman(1941-)

“Parents are often so busy with the physical rearing of children that they miss the glory of parenthood, just as the grandeur of the trees is lost when raking leaves,”- Marcelene Cox.