Things never calm down.

I suggested I'd be back in July. Here it is mid-September and I can't seem to shake free of the ever increasing workload.

I had my fortieth birthday last Tuesday. A lot of people have asked if this is a big deal to me. I suppose it is, but not nearly as big as it used to be. The difference? Having children.

Life Before Piper™ included lots of obsessing about my age and about missing "benchmarks" I had set for myself. Now, with Susannah growing up fast as well, I see time passing not through my ever-increasing gray hair, but rather through the rapid changes in the girls. Piper is beginning her second week of school. (Well, pre-school ... but you explain the difference to her.) Zuzu has been pulling herself to a stand for two months now, and is desperate to do and have everything her sister does.

And me, I'm misquoting my age all the time -- not coincidentally, I seem to still think of myself as 37, my age when Piper came on the scene. Time seems to stop -- or at least move into stealth mode -- when your kids show up. And it's not that I'm grateful that I now seem to be ageless ... It's just that age now seems to matter less to me. Now, ask me how I feel about this as I'm driving back from dropping my second daughter off at college, in 18 years.