Quist World Tour

Ah, motherhood. For a long time it felt like my children would be young forever. And then they were suddenly almost-grownups. I always thought I would enjoy it all a lot more if I could time travel between ages—a few days of babyhood, a week of teenagers, then a couple of days of toddlers and then a week of tweens. Scattered in between should be a good number of travels back to being childless and forward to the time they are on their own. It seems like I would appreciate it all so much more if it weren’t so constant. But of course it doesn’t work that way, and I’m always in the here and now, knowing that the sweet little golden heads holding my hands are not coming back, and one of them is heading out to college next year. Knowing all that, I still manage to be annoyed that they need me so much. Still can’t get in the shower or go to the bathroom without someone calling “Mo-om?” outside my door. Why would that bother me now, when I can plainly see that it will be short-lived? B

Driving from Michigan to Florida during early April is like driving through spring in fast forward. When we left on Friday morning, you could see a crocus here and there, and the hyacinths were just beginning to poke their heads out, checking to see if the coast was clear. The trees didn’t show any signs of waking up yet, other than a bucket hanging from a random tapped maple in town. In southern Ohio, we noticed there were some small, white flowering trees along the roadside, mixed in with larger trees that were showing signs of budding. Kentucky and Tennessee were a time-lapse; first there were the redbuds, then the hazy hues of gold, green, yellow, red and pink that look like a rainbow-colored peach fuzz. Then we hit Georgia and Florida, and the green leaves unfurled around us so that by the time we hit Bradenton, we were into full-blown June. Some of you know that my father-in-law had a ruptured brain aneurysm in late February. I couldn’t help but think of him as I watched