As I was cutting fresh tomatos and zucchini tonight, it dawned on me that summer is really over, and that these would be the very last yummy tomatos to grace our table this year. Suddenly I felt very sad.

Summer has never been my favorite season- I’m a fall gal, through and through. Heat bugs me, winter is just too long, and spring too short- fall is my favorite. But the taste and feeling of summer is always so lovely, at least when it’s not too hot. And summer does make my favorite food- nothing like a sun ripe tomato.

But time seems to be going too fast these days. How on earth is it already almost October? How on earth do I have a Kindergartner? And another son who is out of diapers, doing quite well, and does NOT need my help, thank you very much? And my baby girl, who was oh-so recently torturing me in-utero, is now almost sitting up on her own, finds her feet the most enchanting of toys, and ate rice cereal for the first time today? What in the holy hollyhocks is going on?

My grandmother always said time sped up when you got older. It’s kind of true, and kind of not- at least from my vantage point of somewhat younger years than my Gram… Sometimes the days feel like an eternity. Tick….tick….tick… another diaper, another load of laundry, another meal, another load of dishes, bath, bedtime, story, mess, sippy cup, spill…. ad infinitum. But them when I look up, suddenly years have gone by. How is that possible? How can time be both agonizingly slow, and flying on swift wings?

So tonight for dinner, we had a lovely heirloom tomato sauce over grilled chicken, with fresh zucchini, and it tasted ever so sweet. Fleeting. Maybe that’s why childhood, and life, are so sweet- we know they are fleeting, and like all the best things, must be savored while you can.