Seriously, though…
I promise that there will be a moment when you pause and genuinely wonder what you did with all of your time before becoming a parent. You might be filled with thoughts of, “I could have,” “I should have,” “When will I ever?”
Over time, the wonder and questions fade until it’s nearly impossible to remember life before parenthood.
Our Co-op teacher says that your parenthood experience is cumulative, meaning that you earn one year of experience for each child you’ve parented. With that math, it puts my husband and I at 15.5 years, (Will 10.5 and Johnny 5). Yes, I’ll take that six months of credit. We’ve earned every bit of it.
I don’t know of any other area in which fifteen years of experience still leaves you feeling like a novice on most days; but parenthood can and does.
Each child is different and they are constantly changing, meaning new territory to navigate and new learning required.
Along the way, as parents, we do our best to 1) keep up, 2) evolve with each child’s particular needs and 3) stop to notice how we’re changing as parents too.
Recently I was at a birthday for one of Johnny’s classmates who had just turned five. The parents consoled one another over undone to-do lists and house projects, over piles of laundry and the never ending amount of maintenance required for family life. There was resignation and laughter, shrugged shoulders and rolled eyes, “What can you do?”
There was an understanding and acceptance. This is life. These are our wonderfully full lives with dirty houses and piles of mail, with toys strewn throughout and love pouring from every cracked floorboard.
This is the season we are in and too soon, it will all change.
For now, we hang on for dear life, we squeeze in projects and tasks in fifteen minute increments, trying to save the lion’s share of our energy and time for the stuff that really matters—the birthday parties and play dates, for the reading of five extra books and playing one more round of hide and seek.
This particular birthday party was supposed to end at 1 pm, but the parents, finding such comfort and camaraderie in conversation, let the party stretch on and on.
The children, finding such fun in the sunshine and friendships, played on and on, all the while secretly knowing that they were getting away with something, as a random parent chimed in with “five more minutes” every fifteen minutes or so.
One child approached her mom, “One minute doesn’t really mean one minute, does it?” We all laughed. And agreed, no, it doesn’t. It really doesn’t.
Fifteen years of parenthood, one minute of play. It’s so exquisitely fast and slow at once. Completely ambiguous and painfully uncontainable. I’m humbled by the exhausting and beautiful gift of parenting and have a strong suspicion that I will continue to be until the end of time.