Over the hill... so to speak.

Jim made an observation this morning that stopped me in my tracks.

He was delaying the inevitable workday, when he sighed and said, "Do you realize that we our now halfway done raising our kids?"

I replied, "No... Sophie's only 4 1/2."

"Yes, but Eliza is almost 13, and in 13 more years, Sophie will be 18. So, we are now almost exactly half-way to empty-nesters."

Having been educated in the Portland Public School district, it took me a few moments to process the math in this equation. After working it out in my head, I was stunned.

"But they were all just babies! We just had them a little while ago. I'm still not even fully recuperated from the years of sleep deprivation!" (And goodness knows I still have "baby weight" to lose.)

But he's right. In five years our oldest will be 18 and legally an adult. We have just 5 more years to totally prepare her for life on her own. Of course, we're not kicking her out when she's 18 or anything, but she'll be able to leave and make her own way in the world then. And the rest are lined up right behind her on the departing runway.

Where did the time go? Or, as Jim says when we are being outnumbered and overrun by our kids, "How did it come to this?"

When my mom dropped me off at college, my brothers told me she cried the whole way home to Portland. I didn't understand why.

Until now.