“Blink.” It’s a word I’ve heard from people over and over again. And no, not from my eye doctor.  

It’s the one-word advice that all parents hear throughout their children’s upbringing.

“Blink.” That’s what they told me when my son was born and I didn’t sleep through the night for six months.  

Soon enough, “they” said, you’ll have a hard time waking him up in the middle of the day. And “they” were so right; suddenly he was a teenager and it was 4 p.m., not 4 a.m. that was difficult—except instead of him waking me up, I was trying to wake him up at that hour. 

“Blink.” That’s what they told me when he was in first grade and for some reason, he refused to read by himself, even though I was certain he knew how. 

“Don’t worry,” his first grade teacher promised, “he’ll be reading when he graduates high school.” She was right, of course. And not only did he know how to read in first grade, but by second grade he had read every Harry Potter book by himself, twice. 

“Blink,” they told me when I fretted that he was sucking his thumb well past the time the other preschoolers had given up their pacifiers. “Not a problem,” the pediatrician said, “he won’t be sucking his thumb when he graduates from college.” Boy, I hoped she was right. Because that would be funny, wouldn’t it? A 6-foot-2-inch, thumb-sucking college graduate? 

Well, guess what? I blinked and here we are: time for college graduation. The last “blink” was this past August at the start of his senior year of college. And now it’s “blink” and my BABY is graduating college.  

I wish someone had said more than just that one word to me. I wish someone had told me that when college graduation comes, you’ll be blinking your way through tears, mostly because you’re launching your child into the world before you think you are ready to stop all that blinking. 

I also wish that despite hearing the word “blink” over and over, I’d actually taken the time to listen to what they really meant when they said it. What they meant was: Be present, pay attention, and feel all the “feels” of parenting because each stage goes by so quickly.

I have to give all those parenting advisors credit. They were right. Before I knew it, I blinked my way through his childhood and it has gone by oh so fast.   

I’ll admit there were definitely times when his childhood seemed interminably slow. It took years of fretting and worrying about that thumb before he finally gave it up as a soothing mechanism—and eventually switched it out for a bottle of Corona.  

And there were lots of nights when I had to read complicated fantasy novels out loud to him before he took over the helm of his own reading, only to have him eventually stop reading altogether to play video games all night. And trust me, it sure felt like an eternity before he’d sleep past 7 a.m., let alone until the afternoon. 

But this time, just as I’d been warned, I blinked and my son’s four years of college have gone by in an instant. Somehow this milestone seems to have come so much quicker than the others. 

Honestly, his high school years felt like the longest four years of all our lives. I kept blinking and it just wouldn’t end. Oh there were times it appeared to be moving fast, especially when we all seemed to be running around to a gazillion activities at a fever pace. But contrast that with the times I had to blink my way through all the stupid things adolescent kids do to test our parenting mettle and it all evens out to be a really slow period of parenting.  

Perhaps this college milestone seems to be have flown by because we weren’t with him every day. We weren’t living through the life lessons he learned or helping him to manage the everyday logistics of his education as we had to in high school. And while I’m certain he did stupid things in college, thankfully we weren’t there to witness it or to clean up after it. 

So it’s “blink” and college is over. 

And I suppose it isn’t terrible that this stage went quickly, since we had to pay tuition for this particular rite of passage. Trust me, every time we paid that tuition check, we were blinking through more tears. 

My husband wanted our kids to know what it takes to go to college. So he sends each kid an email every time he writes that check, to tell them exactly how much we’ve paid for their education. Pay attention, kids: no blinking allowed.  

During this last year of college, my husband sent my son daily text reminders of how many days were left before graduation day and consequently how many days our son had left before he needed to get a job to pay for himself post-graduation. 

“Good morning, Son, 130 days until you are off the dole.” 

For his part, my son kept asking his father why he was using a Depression-era term like “dole.” I was thrilled that my boy knows what “the dole” is and knows he has to get off of it. That’s how I know the college degree is really worth something.  

Also, while this milestone went faster than others, it seems so much more momentous than all the ones that came before—except maybe that milestone when he learned to walk by himself because, trust me, he was really heavy by the time he decided to walk on his own at 17 months. (I was constantly blinking through that period, and still he wouldn’t walk.)  

We have always known that in addition to our incredible gene pool and a great work ethic, the greatest gift we can give our children is an education. And I believe that graduating a kid from college seems just about the most grown-up thing the husband and I have ever done together.  

Sure there’s starting a business, buying a house and having a family, which all seem pretty grown-up. But paying for and graduating a kid from college? That’s an investment in all our futures. So while he studied and worked hard for it, our son’s college degree feels like something we all accomplished. 

Or should I say we blinked and got a college graduate.   

I’m sure the graduation weekend festivities will fly right by.  Except for the commencement speech. That is sure to be too long, especially since my hoped-for celebrity, Madonna, won’t be the speaker.  (Her daughter was in my son’s freshman class.) 

And I’m certain the few weeks he’s home before he moves far away to start his first post-college job—which he got well before graduation—will fly right by (unless he makes a big enough mess to make me want to speed up his departure). 

But through this particular rite of passage, the one where we launch a “grown-up” into the world, I intend to stop blinking and really pay attention to this amazing milestone.

Because in the end, I wish instead of “Blink,” people had given me a different word of advice: “Enjoy.”