Motherhood doesn't get easier just because the kids get 'bigger,' this is the lesson I've been learning over the last few years. I spent too many years saying, "If we just get through this phase..." only to find there was another 'phase' right behind it! And sadly? It wasn't until the third child I had the revelation that I just needed to 'roll' with it. I'm a Type-A personality with an Eeyore complex. I didn't watch my kids' miserable behaviors and say, "YES! One day, I'm gonna miss this!!!!" No, I said, "DEAR GOD GET ME THROUGH THIS PHASE!!!" And then I said, "When they get bigger, this will get easier."
I was wrong.
Parents sort of trade the parenting perks for the um, ugly challenges in every phase a child grows through.
Infancy: Perk? (if you're lucky) they snuggle into you. Oh sure, as a mom after a day of holding the baby you feel like you'd rather flay your skin with hot needles than be touched by your husband. Afterall, you're all-touched out...but man, there is nothing like a sweet smelling baby trying to burrow his/her way into your body while it makes sweet sleepy noises and deep deep sighs. As long as you don't try and lay baby down.
So sue me. By child three I didn't try and lay the baby down. I rocked or nursed her to sleep. We held her when she needed holding (guess what, my sink is still often full of dishes and the laundry pile STILL exists). Know what I regret? Not doing the same for Child 1 and Child 2 when they needed/wanted it. I was too busy in 'survival mode' and thinking I had to be 'Super Mom." My house had to be immculate, the kids well-fed, content, not fighting...I don't know. My youthful mom insecurities reared their ugly heads in so many ways it almost sad. And then three years passed between Child 2 and Child 3. I started going down the same path with the third and said to myself, "NO! This is my last kid. She's it. I'm going to hang on to EVERY moment. Even the moment where her Daddy slept on a couch covered in plastic, and he in bath towels while hold her on his chest because the poor thing couldnt hold anything down for 24 hours straight." Sure, we did the same for the other two. There wasn't any difference in how we parented our kids. The difference came on the inside. With Child 1 and Child 2, it was survival...get through the moment. Dear God, Help Me Get Through This Moment. And because we weren't careful? The Moment Passed and Was Gone before we could even reflect upon it. I did a lot of reflecting with Child 3. Instead of Get Through It his night on the plastic covered couch is a memory. One of those "fond but horrible" memories.
Preschool: Child 1 challenged us so badly strangers felt the need to stop us in public and either a) give advice b) tell us we were brave to have Child 2 and there's no way in @#^& they'd have a second child if they had Child 1 at the start or c) take it upon themselves to discipline Child 1 in front of us or d) ask us to leave the premises. I left a lot of 'premisses" It would have been easy to have left him at home, but how does one socialize an, at-the-core unsocializable child if one always leaves said child 'at home?' It's bad enough that 'normal' children are terrible two-ing, three-ing and sometimes four-ing (oh four is a fun fun age) but when you add that extra special challenge of a child, you pray to get through this 'phase' faster than normal. Unfortunately that doesnt happen. That said, Child 1's preschool years did have some perks. How many three year olds plant a garden that produce over 60 cucumbers from 2 plants? Seriously folks, not joking here. The kid has a green thumb. How many two, three and four year olds take to a musical instrument and teach it to themselves? How many four year olds take off their own training wheels and just get on the bike, regardless of falling off a million and one times, learn to ride it within three days?
Please understand what I'm saying. At the time I played "proud mama" and talked about these stories, but to be honest? I was so busy trying to keep it all together, I couldn't appreciate the unique-ness I was too busy wanting a different child. I wanted the child who would sit in his/her seat, who wouldn't dance on the table during Sunday School, whose teacher didn't say, "You need to sit in class with him." Meanwhile, I was just starting to figure out the gift I had been given. Challenge yes. Kid who would do anything you ask? No matter what? Who worked harder than you do yourself? Yes.
School Age
That said, this last 5 months? I have thoroughly enjoying the perk of having someone else to drive his sister to swim practice and picking up poster board for his other sister. Joshua, you are the best.
