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Email a FriendMy son will be turning 4 on Sunday, and it’s unlikely that I will ever have another child. For this reason, each one of his birthday is very bittersweet. I love the infant/toddler/preschool years. One advantage of only having one child is that it’s easier for me to savor them. I know that if I had lots of littles running around (especially twins!), I would probably experience the “days are long” much more than the “years are short”. I just can’t believe that I no longer have an infant or toddler in the house, and that in another year or two I won’t even have a preschooler. I would love to hear what moms love about older kids, because right now I find it hard to believe that I will ever enjoy my son as much when he’s older as I have during these infant/toddler/preschool years.
Tiny Little Things
Posted by Arwen Mosher in Family on Thursday, January 05, 2012 9:00 AM
Last night a variety of factors converged in a sleep trainwreck: Linus and Ambrose both awoke every two hours all night long.
Six wakeups each times two babies. Do that piece of math and you’ll understand why I crawled out of bed in a stupor this morning.
But blessedly, I checked my email soon afterward and found a message from a dear aunt whose two boys are now in their twenties. She’d gotten our Christmas letter and wanted to tell me how my descriptions of Blaise took her back to the days when her big ones were little. She kindly sympathized with my exhaustion, but her memories of the joyful young years of her sons’ lives gave me a reminder: these days are precious. I want to savor them.
Then I went downstairs, arms full of clothes for my kids to wear today, and mistakenly told Blaise that I’d picked out his “little brother” shirt for him. The shirt, which he wears proudly, actually says “Big Brother,” and he scowled as he corrected me.
“No, Mama! I don’t have a tiny brother shirt. I am the BIG brother!”
Blaise never uses the words “little” or “small,” instead preferring “tiny.” I figure we have mere weeks until he figures it out and corrects himself, and oh how I will miss “tiny” when it is gone.
That’s something to savor.
At the end of Anne of Ingleside Montgomery’s character of Anne, going to each of her children’s beds to kiss their sleeping heads, reflects on the fleeting nature of childhood.
They were all growing so fast. In just a few short years they would all be young men and women… littls ships sailing out of safe harbour to unknown ports… But they would still be hers for a few years yet… hers to love and guide… to sing the songs that so many mothers had sung.
I remember reading that before I was a mother and wondering: would my children’s childhoods feel quick to me too? Then I had Camilla and started really feeling the “days are long” part of the “the days are long but the years are short” adage. I couldn’t wait for her to grow, to learn more and talk more so I could get to know her better and show her more of the world. After Blaise came along, I felt the same way about him.
But now… well, now Camilla is a KID, so long-legged under the covers when I tuck her into bed at night. Yesterday I asked her to help me find a missing mitten and thanked her when she located it. She chirped, “I’m always happy to help!” and - whoa! - I realized with a chill that she will never be a baby again. This is it. She’s a kid now and there is no going back.
(By the way, don’t feel badly if your five-year-old is not “happy to help.” The evening before Camilla stood in the middle of the room and wailed because I’d told her to take her dirty socks to the laundry. “I don’t want to clean uuuuuuuuup, Mama!” She just happened to be having a good moment yesterday.)
As Camilla and Blaise grow - too big to sit on my lap together, now - I am starting to understand how Anne Blythe felt. These years are indeed passing quickly. When I’m in my aunt’s place in another two decades, I hope to look back and see that I gave my little ones the appreciation they deserved.
If your children are growing - or grown - out of the baby years, what are your most treasured moments? And conversely (so I can continue to enjoy looking forward) what do you like about having older or grown children? Please share!
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Some of my best moments, recently, are watching my 11 year old “baby” girl (my first, and her infancy was very high needs), play with her youngest brothers (3 & 5) with great patience. The other day we were in the ball/maze room at the gym waiting for my older son at a birthday party and my daughter devised a game and scavenger hunt for my 2 boys, and about 4 other little people with great imagination and enthusiasm. The dads waiting out the party with their little ones were so impressed with her, it made me so proud!
My oldest is 16 and my youngest is 9. I honestly can’t say I miss anything about the baby/infant/todder/preschool days. Those days were a complete blur and I wonder sometimes, when I look at old pictures, how I managed to survive. Because of that, I really enjoy my children now. They are good company for me, they can pick up after themselves and pack their own suitcases when we travel, they are growing both intellectually and spiritually, and although life is not perfect with a bunch of teens and preteens, we’re all still here together and I’m grateful for that.
My oldest is 23 and my youngest is 11. The time flew by so very quickly that I can hardly believe it. “Sunrise, Sunset” from Fiddler on the Roof comes to mind. There are some really hard stages (or at least there have been with my older children). There was a point when it didn’t matter what I said or did, I simply felt IO could not reach my oldest. Things are improving there, but we are not as close as I would like. The hardest things I have found in parenting is letting them go. It is bittersweet since we want them to grow and be able to care for themselves, yet we miss them once they leave.
I do love being able to discuss things with my children now that they are older. We discuss books, politics, television programs, movies, even sometimes video games (which I really know nothing about).
I really do miss the baby or toddler snuggling. I try to get my “baby fix” by holding my friends’ babies now.
My youngest will be 6 this Saturday. I can’t believe how fast time has flown. We were looking at pictures from when he was a baby & toddler and I don’t even remember him being that small. I miss the baby/toddler stage at times, but I don’t miss the lack of sleep, it will get better Arwen. My oldest is 8 1/2 and can get cereal for herself and her brother, they both know how to turn on the tv and play wii or watch something on Netflix until we wake up. On New Years Day, they let us sleep in until 11:30 a.m. It was wonderful! (and I didn’t have to worry that they were getting into mischief either). I think time flies very fast once they are school age and before I know it they will be graduated and embarking on their own lives, but until then I will enjoy my time with them. Thankfully I’ve been able to coordinate work around my family, which is a blessing.
My youngest is almost 19 Arwen. He is the youngest of 5. My oldest will be 30 this year. Seems like yesterday that he was just a toddler posing under the Christmas Tree for a picture. Savor the moments of babyhood and childhood. I do miss those days, but am thankful for all the “me” time I have now. It’s nice to be able spend a weekend away or an afternoon alone in the house. There is also more “hubby and me” time, which is nice. I also work outside the house now, which I like. I’m with 5 year olds all day, so sometimes it seems like the “old days”!
I thought about it over the holidays. My sil has 3 young adult/older teens. She was assuring me that things the holidays would get easier as she watched me wrangled the toddler and baby to get them out the door. She described nice quiet evenings when her kids are home from college and they make dinner together and watch videos or play board games and have adult conversation. I’m looking forward to that, but I will really, really miss how the holidays are magical around our home this time of our life. The kids are so excited about Christmas. I love seeing their faces light up over the littlest things. Parenting is so bittersweet!
What I miss the most is reading picture books to my kids. I would lug a huge canvas bag full of books home with 20 - 30 books each time we went to the library. I was usually nursing a baby and reading to the older child. My youngest is 10 and the other day in church, he sort of nestled his head on my arm when we were seated next to each other on the pew. That was so sweet from someone who wants to be in the military some day - and you bet I savored it. I have heard that different moms enjoy different stages of their kids lives - I would have to say I enjoyed the baby/toddler/preschool time the best. Maybe because I felt competent then! Now my kids know so much more than I do about technology, difficult math and science etc. that I really can’t help them any more in that way. Still, I do enjoy watching them use their talents - they are all so different. A couple of them are great writers, another is artistic, one is just incredibly helpful and organized, another makes me laugh. You start to realize what a gift you have been given when you see them grow up and start to make a difference in the world they are living in.
My husband has been gone a lot lately and last night the baby was asleep and my preschooler was sick and asleep. I had wonderful dinner company with my 8-1/2 year old. I just really enjoyed his company and the conversation and his developing sense of humor. Watching these little people unfold is wonderful! I love snuggling my infant, listening to the silliness of my almost 4-year old, too. All very different stages, all very good!
I still remember when my oldest two (who are now 12 & 13) were just beginning to talk to each other when the oldest was 3 and the younger one was almost 2. I still marvel about how cool that was because I had dreamed about the day when I would hear them talking to each other. Just the other night I heard them in the other room discussing homework and it brough back some memories! 
I remember visiting my in-laws when my (now) husband and I were dating. We were watching his step-mom’s grandkids (3 sisters, ages 1, 3, 5) making each other cry. It left both of us with a kind-of sick feeling about starting a family someday. Now, four years later, it is amazing to see those same girls! They are SO good with each other!! Sure, every once in awhile someone purposefully bugs someone else… but most of the time they are polite, sharing, caring, and sweet. It has made me a big believer in surviving “phases” because the next phase may be better!!
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