The baby years are hard — everyone tells you that. Never in my life have I been so utterly exhausted, right down to my core. The pregnancy, the newborn stage, the middle-of-the-night feedings, and then, eventually, the relentless toddler years — of wrangling strong-willed 2-year-olds, trying to make them go “potty,” and begging them PLEASE for the love of God, not to wake the baby — it’s all incredibly hard.
But they are some beautiful years, too.
Baby snuggles are the best, and seeing your sassy little toddler say, “No!” and stomp her foot down at the same time is adorable, even if it is frustrating at times. Watching those first steps and hearing that first, “Mama” is like no other experience you’ll have in a lifetime.
But as they say, time marches on, and eventually, like a cloud lifting, you see a bright light ahead of you, where everything seems so much more simple and easy.
I’m talking about the middle years of childhood. The ones people don’t typically talk about as much — probably because when you realize for the first time that you get to leave the house without a diaper bag, it feels like it can’t quite be actually happening, and you are stumped for words.
I’m in that phase of parenting right now, where naps aren’t an issue anymore, and diaper bags aren’t required. My kids all know how to wipe themselves, and they are even starting to fix their own meals. It’s a weird phase to be in. You want them to be independent, but you simultaneously want them to stay little again. You try to pick them up, and you almost throw your back out doing it because they aren’t babies anymore. It’s awkward for them, and it’s awkward for you, too.
Rounded cheeks become leaner, and hands aren’t quite as tiny. Their coordination is better, and so is their ability to get on your last nerve. They suddenly know what sarcasm is and they use it often. Eye rolling is also now a part of their body language, so that’s fun too. Suddenly, you’re thrust into middle parenting and you’re not sure how you got there and how you survived all that baby rearing of the last 10 years or so.
But, these middle years are no cake-walk either.
Little squabbles about who had the toy first don’t seem like such a big deal now that you’re dealing with daily cries of, “That’s annoying!” declarations between siblings. It seems there isn’t a moment of peace where all the kids are getting along, as hormones are undoubtedly gearing up inside their little bodies that are trying to become bigger teens.
Suddenly the big sister wants alone time in her room, and you’re comforting her little brother who is sad that she doesn’t want to play LEGOs anymore.
You’re trying to teach things like responsibility and independence, which are no easy task to accomplish. You hover over them for different reasons now. It’s all about trying to keep them on task to follow through with commitments and remember homework assignments instead of hovering over them so they don’t scrape a knee on the playground.
In the middle years, it’s a balancing act of wanting to get away from your kids because they are driving you crazy with their new found goofiness and bad joke telling, and wanting, even begging them, to snuggle, kiss, and hug you. They don’t always want to anymore, and your heart is ripped in two at least a few (or a million) times a day.
You find yourself a little lost, but not in the way you always dreamed of. You wonder what your purpose is while they’re at school, and, if you don’t have a job to occupy your mind, you find yourself filling your hours with busy work, because you secretly wish they’d come home from school to annoy you a little more.
You’re breaking up fights over who gets to listen to which song on the radio, and who really was the one that was making the annoying noise that started the squabble in the first place.
You get sleep, but wake up worried in the middle night that you’re not connecting enough with your kids, and you realize these years might be the most important bonding years of all, so that they’ll still want to talk to you when they’re teenagers.
You lose it when they can’t do the simple things you know they are now capable of, and cry when they do because they are growing up. Your instructions to the babysitter aren’t as long, and you get to remember why you like your husband again.
You want your babies back, but you kind of don’t, too. Because silence when they’re at school is kind of amazing, and not cleaning up someone’s backside doesn’t suck, either.
The beauty is that you can be an observer more now to their smart wit and talents. You can take pride in things they have actually started to learn, and you can sit back and listen from the next room when they don’t know you’re listening and learn quite a bit about the little people they are quickly turning into.
And, most of all, you know it’s short lived. Because you’ve seen it happen before. How the years slip by quickly and it feels like it never happened. You know now that the teen years are coming up fast, even though you’re youngest just started Kindergarten.
So, you enjoy it just a tiny bit more than you did during those baby years, while simultaneously trying to maintain your cool when they still can’t manage to get the clothes in the laundry basket. You savor the good times more when they aren’t fighting, or when they figure out how to play the same game, together, without arguing.
The beautiful part of these years though is the experience of what you’ve already been through. Because you now realize everybody was right. It does go by so fast that it hurts. So you find yourself hanging onto these middle years for as long as you possibly can. Because the middle years are downright, annoyingly beautiful — just like the rest.