These Are the Times to Remember

"This is the time to remember
'cause it will not last forever.
These are the days to hold on to,
'cause we won't, although we'll want to.
This is the time,
But time is gonna' change."

Billy Joel wrote these lyrics about holding on to the joys of a budding romance to warm the heart as time passes. Yet the chorus plays in my mind as I hear my childrens' laughter from the next room.

They are playing games with each other that they have made up.
Will they remember the joy of their childhood friendship.
Will I remember the unbridled giggles I hear?

They are playing "Roadrunner Tag." It's simple. Roadrunner runs. Coyote wants to catch him. Roadrunner says, "Beep! Beep!" There's running, tagging, beeping, giggling. Simple, and anyone can play.

One child claims tired. The other will not desist tagging & beeping. Before tears erupt, I make a suggestion that they now race like on "The Cat in the Hat Knows All About That": A Slow Race. Maybe it was the sloth, maybe it was the snail, but it was a race to see who can go slowest. They try, oh, they try. But they're very fast for being slow!

Sitting now, MLB picks up a Doodle-Pro and suggests a new game: "Don't Trap the Turtle." DLG is game for the game, until she learns it's a guess-the-word game. "I don't want to play hangman!" And off she goes to her room to build a tower. MLB is undaunted and plays by himself. He has picked his four-letter word and sketched his turtle. With the "Magnet School" tin of letters in front of him, he begins to draw them out randomly. A correct letter gets written down; an incorrect letter builds one of sixteen section of cage around the poor turtle. Much kinder than hanging a poor ol' stick man.

These are the days to hold on to. So often I don't. So often I want to.