Marco, Frank, and Ronnie Reynolds

“You blink and it’s gone.”

That’s what people say to us lately. They look at Sophie or Parker, shake their heads, undoubtedly recalling images of their no longer little children, and say it.

2 year old Bubs, after Jerry Sloan announced his retirement

“You blink and it’s gone.”

Which isn’t actually true.

I tried it when Ruby was throwing an epic tizzy the other day.

It was still there.

Still, though I can’t fully appreciate what they are saying yet, I do believe them. Or at least, I believe that I will one day say something like that and mean it.

We have three kids now. We are all getting older. Time seems to have lost its predictable nature. When it comes to days and years, the whole seems to be less than the sum of the parts. The days seem to be 365 hours long. But, there are only 24 days in a year. It’s sort of an anti-synergy.

I can’t stop it or slow it down. I’m blinking, even when I’m sleeping. And it’s going.

These most recent blinks have been particularly painful for me. Some of my favorite characters have fallen victim to time.

Parker’s famous imaginary friends have moved on. At first, he reported they had moved on to the next life (which, as Parker currently envisions it, is a beautiful place in the sky, somewhere by Mexico-which he also thinks is in the sky because we flew on an airplane to get there- that is ruled over by Santa.)

Parker’s exact words were these,

“They all died.”

And he was surprisingly unaffected by this.

But, it turns out their deaths were blasphemously short. A few days later, Parker informed me that his friends were alive again, they’d just moved. Since some of you never had the chance to officially meet them, I will give you a quick bio.

Marco-

Marco was a bearded woodsmith. Of Parker’s three amigos, Marco was his first and closest friend. He lived and worked in the mountains behind our house. His powerful saw could be heard from our front porch on quiet summer nights. Marco was a very dedicated worker. He was pretty much always at the mountain jobsite. He was “pretty tall,” by Parker's estimation. He would sing like Bon Iver. (Parker said, “Hey, this is Marco,” every time we played Bon Iver for a solid 6 months.) Marco also had a pet deer named either “Deer,” or “Dear” depending upon how clever you think Parker is. Marco finished his work in the Utah mountains and disappeared about the same time Parker’s sister let out of school for the summer last year. Marco was later reported to have died. These reports were apparently false, or at least premature. Marco is reported to be living in Michigan now. He and Deer have made a home on the peaceful shores of Lake Huron. There is a substantial sandbar and Deer is able to roam comfortably 30 or 40 feet out into the water to fetch a tennis ball. Marco will be picking blueberries from the local U Pick farm at the end of August and Parker is very jealous.

Frank-

Frank was either Marco’s father, brother or son. Reports vary. Little is known about Frank, actually. We know he worked in the mountains with Marco. If he is a dad, he's a good dad. He helped Marco, perhaps having passed the woodsmith skill onto his son. Frank still lives in the mountains of Utah.

Ronnie Reynolds-

Ronnie Reynolds was the last friend to come along. He was always called by his full name, first and last. He seemed to be very funny, always bringing a smile to Parker’s face. He was a friend of Marco’s, perhaps brought in to work on the “project” in the mountains. He also had a pet deer. In fact, while he was in Utah, he did pretty much everything exactly the same as Marco. Occasionally, he would leave Marco and Frank at work in the mountains and head off on various adventures. Ronnie Reynolds currently resides in California. He lives "pretty close to Owen Barnett," where he has a "pretty nice garden." My educated guess puts Ronnie Reynolds somewhere in Ventura County, probably Oxnard. You could grow a sweet garden in Ventura County for sure.

These guys were a BIG part of his life for 6 months or so last year. The truth of it is, sometime after Marco got his pet deer, but before Marco died/moved, Parker figured it out. One of those blurry lines dividing imagination from reality cleared up and he saw it for what it was. And it was still pretty fun, but it was different. He’d talk about them with me from time to time because he knew I thought it was funny, and I was probably unusually engaged with him on the subject. Then he sort of phased them out.

I miss them more than he does for sure. I liked them because they had such amazing names. I liked them because he talked about them with such a matter of fact tone. But mostly, I liked them because, without much work, I could convince myself that they were fashioned in the likeness of me. I was working on a cabin in Little Cottonwood canyon at the time. It was winter and the Novembeard stubble had spilled over into a full time winter beard. I had vacationed with Parker on the shore of Lake Huron and the Southern California beach earlier that year. I even had a pet deer. (that bit's not true actually.) Maybe it was a chance to see myself the way one of my kids saw me that made it so magical for me as an adult. I haven’t given a lot of thought to the psychology of it really. I don’t intend to. But it makes me happy still to know that I was up there, in his little head, with all the other things that make him who he is, and will help him choose who he wants to be. I like the way he see the world. I like the way I see the world with him in it.

For the most part, my days are normal and long. My eyes see what they see, and my brain processes it involuntarily. I don’t even notice the lids closing. It’s pretty quick and there’s plenty to distract me. But tonight I am up particularly late. Everyone else in our house is asleep, and I will be soon. I just want to capture this little memory of my progressively less-little boy.

But I’m tired and I can feel the full weight of my eyelids. They’re heavy. They close quickly, then open again.

I re-focus and try to type some more.

My eyes close and open again. I try keep them opened. And fail.

I try again

and fail again.

Then I resign to the truth. There’s no stopping it.

I’m going to blink.

And it’ll be gone.

Bubs with the Big Kids, ready to walk to his first day of Kindergarten

Enjoy your time as a Knowlton Colt, little man. It's fun getting old with you.