I've been having a lot of conversations lately, mostly with my best friend, about parenting. I think her and I are both at this point where we are moving from one phase of parenting to the next. For my best friend, she's been adjusting to life with three children. Her oldest is a year away from kindergarten. Her youngest is approaching her first birthday. For me, we've been adjusting to life with five children. This is my second year with three children in elementary school. Our oldest is in 3rd grade and it's his last year in the single digits. He turns 10 years old next year! (10 years old! I've been changing diapers for a DECADE.) Our twins are in 1st grade. My youngest recently turned one and our fourth is becoming a full-fledged preschooler. I had a hysterectomy earlier this year and so, for the first time after our youngest child turned one, we aren't considering when we should have our next baby.
I had a conversation with her the other night and she was bringing up things, like, "My oldest recently started doing this and this and this..." And I would nod and she would say, "When will this stop?" And I'd be like, "Girl... they are just getting started. They don't stop."
This conversation really got me thinking because when we are chatting about things it felt like my oldest was so much older than her oldest-- almost 5 years old compared to 9 years old. It feels like so long ago that I had "only" three children and was contemplating having a fourth. It feels like so long ago that I went from having one toddler to suddenly having a preschooler and toddler twins. Three mobile children felt like such a challenge. I was one mom with two hands and three kids running around in every direction! It felt like so long ago that I was waiting for certain phases to pass. What happened to my sweet baby? My sweet toddler? What's with the sass from this preschooler? What's with this level of mayhem? Why is it getting harder? Why am I busier? WHY WON'T THEY NAP?!
But when I started thinking about it from this point of view... our questions really aren't that different. Why is my 3rd grader moody? Why are my 1st graders causing absolute mayhem? Why is it harder getting out now with a 3rd grader, two 1st graders, a 3 year old, and a 1 year old than when I had a 4 year old and two 2 year olds? Why are my days so much busier than when my twin newborns came home from the hospital? Why am I getting less sleep? Why am I more stressed out? ARE MY KIDS NORMAL? AM I DOING THIS ALL WRONG?
Having children is a huge shift in how you live your life. You go from being a single adult to a parent. You have 24/7 responsibilities. I remember how hard it was with our first son. How much I cried and how worried I would be over the smallest things. I remember when our twins came home and life became infinitely busier. I don't think it was just because we brought home two babies at once; I have talked to a lot of people who said that going from one baby to having two children was a huge change for them (and possibly harder than going from no babies to your first baby). I remember all the schedules we would write up and the routines we put in place. These routines kept the mayhem at bay, but it was day in and day out work. Alarms on my phone. Days planned out before they happened. It was dreary work at times. I kept thinking that when they got older, I would be able to live a "normal" life with three children, instead of the over-scheduled structure we had in place.
Then our fourth son was born and instead of life becoming "easier" (or "normal"), our fourth baby just fell into the schedule we had in place for the older three. Granted, our schedule wasn't as structured as when our twins were infants, but it was a constant never-ending schedule. The work load never lessened from what was going on when we only had three kids. And then we had our fifth child and our "mayhem level" never went down. We had the schedule for our older three children and these two babies that I would drag around to school pick up and drop off and doctors appointments, all while working in feeding times and naps and diaper changes. There are times where I honestly feel five children has been way more work than when we had three children, but, for the most part, having five children has basically just maintained the crazy/mayhem level we hit once we had three children (especially three mobile children).
When I think back to these phases and the things that I learned during them, I think about now. I feel just as confused and overwhelmed now as I did when our twins started walking and got into everything. I vividly remember leaving the children's museum when they were toddlers and I had one toddler on my hip under my arm, another toddler dragging his legs while I held his hand with my other arm, and my preschooler laying on the ground in front of me wailing that he didn't want to leave. I thought, "How on earth do I manage THREE children having meltdowns at once?!" It was a surreal experience. And those are the times that people tell you, "Don't worry! It will get easier!" Is it easier now that my older three are in 3rd and 1st grade? No. Do they lay on the ground and throw fits while I try to man handle them out of the children's museum? (Eh... sometimes...) For the most part, no. No. It is different. They pout. They drag their feet. They argue. They negotiate. They interrupt. They beg. They get wild and silly and start chasing games. They bicker. That's what they do now when I try to leave the children's museum and they don't want to. And sometimes I'm able to shut it down with consequences, "If you don't behave, we won't come again for awhile," and sometimes their behavior doesn't adjust and I have to figure out how to get them all out of the children's museum. I can tell you, when you are being followed by a wailing 1st grader, people give you a lot of dirty looks and judging remarks, compared to when they were little and people usually offered encouraging remarks. (Instead of, "Don't worry, Momma! It gets easier!" I get, "How old is he? Why is he doing that?")
When my kids moved from their preschool/toddler behaviors into their kindergarten/elementary school behaviors, I found the moodiness, pouting, and bickering overwhelming. It felt like constant chaos. Constant pedal to the metal. Constant meltdowns. I'm not saying my children didn't bicker before... now they were just bigger. Sometimes doing it more and doing it at inopportune times when sometimes I wasn't right there to break it up. For instance, when they play in our backyard while I am in the house taking care of the baby and toddler. I will have the window open and doors open to keep an eye on them and sometimes all they do is sit out there and get into screaming, whining fights with each other. I would think that an 8 year old and 6 year olds would much rather play in the rock pit or run through the sprinklers or eat their popsicles. But, no. They would rather all grab the same shovel and screech over who gets the red shovel. They would rather get into a screaming, crying fit over arbitrary rules to run through the sprinkler. They would rather yell at each other over how one of them is eating the popsicle or who is letting it drip to much-- never mind that this argument is causing none of them to eat their popsicles and they are all coated in sticky, melting popsicle.
I kept thinking, wait, aren't they too old for this? But then I talked to more parents with older kids, their teachers, their counselors, and no. No, they are not too old for this. In fact, it is pretty normal kid behavior. What happened to, "IT GETS EASIER????" Is this easier???
So when I talk to mommas with younger kids and they say, "When will they stop this?" I shake my head because, girl, I hear you. It is exhausting. When mommas with younger kids say, "I can't wait until mine are in elementary school!" I shake my head because, girl, I thought the same thing.
It's not easier. It doesn't get better.
The newborn and toddler years are not the time to knuckle down, get through, and wait until they are tiny, well-behaved people.
There is no magical age.
My elementary kids are not easier than your toddlers. My toddlers were not harder than your elementary age kids. My twins weren't harder. My singletons weren't easier. It's all relative. It's all just different kinds of crazy.
Parenting is not something that fits in a neat, little box.
It doesn't get easier; it just is different.
Parenting involves people. Tiny people with emotions they aren't always able to control or communicate. They have wants and needs and don't always either know how to ask for those desires or don't have the vocabulary to do so. They have developmental milestones that are confusing, not just for you, but for them as well. Going through those things for the first time is a difficult process. It is hard to understand what is going on with your children-- their moods, their behaviors. How your child who slept through the night and generally enjoyed your day to day activities is suddenly waking frequently and throwing fits all through the evening. What do you do to fix this problem? And then going through it a second time you start seeing similarities. At this age and stage, my second child started having about the same behaviors as my oldest... and my next child the same. You start seeing which of those behaviors are attributed to mood and temperament and which of those are pretty much across the board childhood milestones, regardless of personality and upbringing. You figure out what isn't unique to your child and what is unique to your child.
And so, by the time you have 3 or 4 or 5 babies, you know what to expect the first year... and around 1.5 years old, 3 years old, 4 years old... but the older ages elude you. You know the sleep schedule will change around 12 weeks old, 6 months old, 1 year old, and 1.5 years old. But, is this how all 6 year olds behave? "Yes," you can say, as your 2nd and 3rd child finally hit the 6 year old age and you have the same battles with them that you did with your oldest. While at the time with your oldest, you were flabbergasted. "Why is he pouting like this? Why is he throwing fits like this?"
My problems aren't different than my best friend's. Her three kids are still a year away from elementary school, but that caught-off-guard what-am-I-doing feeling is the same. My kids just happen to be older and so when she talks about 3 year olds-- I've had 4 of those already. When we talk about 9 year olds-- eh. I'm lost. I'm on my first 9 year old and everything is confusing.
What I'm realizing is that every age and stage will probably feel like this. As my older kids head into uncharted territory-- developmental milestones and ages and stages that we haven't hit yet-- there is a really good chance that I will feel just as overwhelmed and uncertain as I did when my newborn's sleep pattern changed at 12 weeks old. Or when my baby started walking. Or when my toddler started having tantrums over everything. Or when my preschooler stopped napping. Or when my kindergartner became exceptionally argumentative. Or when my 1st grader started pouting through meals. Or when my 3rd grader became moody.
And I'm realizing also that these ages and stages will vary with each of our children. Just like how each of them teethed in their own way. Some of my kids got their teeth all in one go-- 4 teeth in a weekend! Some of my kids were happy teethers, maybe a little fussy, but not much schedule change-- and then, bam! tooth! Some fussed for weeks before the teeth came in and we had huge mouth sores over the coming in tooth that would swell and bleed. But it was all teething-- between the kids, it was just slightly different. Different because the teething happened differently for each of them. Different because they are different people with different temperaments. Different because the experience of each of them teething affected me differently based off of what was going on in my life while they were teething. Such as, our twins wailing over a mouthful of teeth over one weekend was different than baby #4 not sleeping because of his teeth coming in. They weren't always "easier" or "harder" experiences, but I handled them differently because of what was going on in our lives. When our twins were teething, I could do a lot more for them because my oldest was in preschool and we could just hang out at home. When baby #4 and baby #5 were (are) teething, I tend to have to "power through" a lot more because I can't stop life over a tooth coming in. It's all exhausting, but each child getting teeth has been a different experience for me.
I'm guessing that by the time baby #4 turns 6 years old, I will feel like a pro at the kindergarten/1st grade age, just like how now I feel like I know what to expect from the baby/toddler ages. But when baby #4 and baby #5 are hitting elementary school, my older three boys will hitting the pre-teen and teen years.
A common thing we hear as parents-- often as parents with young children-- is to enjoy it now. That makes me want to pull my hair out sometimes. I'm getting phone calls from the elementary school regarding my children's behavior. I'm meeting with the school counselor and feel massively overwhelmed with some of the behavior issues. My 3 year old is a wild man-- shredding everything he can get his hands on, running, hiding, and generally impossible to manage. My 1 year old is teething and her GI issues constantly keep us on our toes. I feel like I am under so much pressure. My oldest is definitely at the age now where he will remember how overwhelmed I've been lately. I feel like I have one chance at parenting and that I constantly just mess up-- why else are my kids being so crazy? HOW CAN I ENJOY EVERY MOMENT OF THIS?
"Enjoying" parenting doesn't mean thinking it is all fun. It doesn't mean laughing when two kids have somehow stripped their clothes off right before you are supposed to leave to catch the bus or the baby has a stinky diaper at school pick up or you have to wake the 3 year old to go pick up his brothers from school. "Enjoying" parenting doesn't mean that every weeknight dinner with homework and folders and reading logs and bedtime routine has to be the highlight of your day. It means breathing in, digging your heels in, and accepting the current chaos.
THIS IS WHERE YOUR KIDS ARE AT RIGHT NOW.
Yes, they may be going through a really hard phase-- but how will you make it easier by being angry, even if you aren't taking it out on your kids? Yes, potty training may be the absolute worst thing that ever happened to your family-- but how will you make it easier by being angry, even if you aren't taking it out on your kids?? Yes, they may wake up fighting and bickering every single morning, waking up the baby, waking up the whole house-- but how will you make it easier by being angry, even if you aren't taking it out on your kids?
My children are their own people. And strangers and outsiders can judge us all they want. I am loving my children for who they are. Meeting them where they are. Guiding their personalities, their passions, their desires, their hopes and dreams, into the people that God made them to be. My children will never be the people I envisioned-- my vision for how parenting would go. I can give them the tools and I can be consistent and I can pray over them and help them channel their energies for good. But they are their own people and I am just their parent. Just their mom. Eventually, they will be their own person, responsible for themselves and making their own choices. And my role is to prepare them for that. Not to live out the Jane Austen picturesque life I envisioned, long before ever actually having children.
Moms with many don't know everything. We don't have it all together. We don't know what we are doing. And what works for us, worked pretty much for us, individually. We can give tips and tricks. But I don't think I have all the answers for someone else. I didn't even do everything the same with all five of my kids.
We all do the wrong thing and we all have to readjust our parenting technique. What works for one kid may not work for the next. What worked at one age and stage may not work for the next. And as you grow-- you, yourself, the parent-- you may find that some of the systems and techniques you put into place no longer fit with who you are now. None of that is bad. That is normal.
Because, I promise, mommas, these ages and stages will end. In the blink of an eye, all of your current hardships will be over. It doesn't feel like that. How can 5 years pass in the blink of an eye? But it just does. All those things I just listed are things that are really hard for me right now or were things that were really hard for me at the time. Our evenings are miserable. I've really struggled this year and last year with our evening routine and my children's moods after school. Homework and reading logs are going to be the death of me.
BUT THIS IS WHERE THEY ARE. THIS IS OUR CURRENT AGE AND STAGE.
I remember when my older three were really young, when we lived in North Carolina. We had a sitter who came over once a week to put the children to bed. I was exhausted at that point in time. Going from sun up to sun down with three children, I needed a break. It was the best feeling to drive out of my driveway knowing the sitter was going to feed them dinner, get them bathed, and have all three in bed by the time I came home. When I think about our bedtime routine then compared to now, I laugh. I had three babies. We had a pretty structured routine and they were great about going to sleep. Now, when I have two 1st graders reading out loud with a 3 year old writhing in my lap and a 1 year old running around throwing fits over wanting to shred the reading log while the 3rd grader stresses over our schedule for the week... I think about how much crazier it is. I would give anything to go back to when our older three were small. Kiss their fresh from bath faces and squeeze all of them into fleece footie pajamas. When our biggest struggle was begging for drinks of water or one more hug to prolong the bedtime routine, instead of now with kids getting out of bed, running, wrestling, screeching, meltdowns over reading logs, and fussing over e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g. ("He's touching me!" "He read that book last night!" "He took my luck penny!" "Hey, I was going to sit there!" "Those are my pajamas!" "I want to wear that shirt tomorrow!" "He used my toothbrush!")
At the time though, getting the three of them to bed was really hard for me. When I think of "enjoying" parenting, I think of examples like that. I think of all the hard feelings I had inside of me-- the frustration, the anger, the exhaustion, the constant stimulation, continuously being overwhelmed. That's when I take a breath. Because I keep finding that the hard phases pass and suddenly I miss those ages and stages. I miss how simple it was then. And I really think that I will look back one day to where I am now and miss this (even those bloody reading logs). I think enjoying parenting or enjoying the phases may not be putting each phase in a neat box and telling yourself, "Okay, gotta get through the first year because the toddler years will be so much better." No. Enjoying may be more meeting your child where they are at-- not trying to get back to a "normal" of a past age and stage or trying to fit your family schedule in the neat timeline you careful arranged and printed out to hang on the fridge.
I think in parenting we keep telling ourselves that we will eventually "arrive." Eventually we will hit a point where it is easy and we feel we were successful. We hear, "Don't worry, it gets easier." And we believe it. And it is so incredibly disappointing when it doesn't happen that way. I wonder, "Am I approaching this wrong?" Maybe it's because I have a finger in every pot-- I have three children in elementary school, but I also have a 3 year old and a 1 year old at home all day. Maybe when all five are in school all day, I will say, dang this is so much easier! Maybe it is just me. But I don't think so. I think we are all discovering that each age and stage has it's challenges. That things change-- not always for the better. That kids grow up way faster than we want them to. That we can fly through the first year with a newborn in a zombie trance and suddenly we have a walking baby on our hands when we were still adjusting to being parents. That we can struggle through each day with a rambunctious toddler and suddenly they are sounding out words and heading off to school. Why does it go so fast?? Why is it so hard??
I really think that's normal. I think it's normal to be able to see the beauty in phases that have past. I think it is normal to realize other people are going through what you are going through. I think it is part of parenting to reach out to other moms, going through the ages and stages with you and to collectively wonder "WHAT IS WRONG WITH MY CHILDREN?!" I think it is normal to figure it out as you go and to make the best decisions that you can. It is probably even normal to feel like you are doing it all wrong (like I do). We are all moms. We are all hanging in there. We are all doing the best we can. The ages and stages were hard when we went through them the first time (or the first couple times). The ages and stages we are at now will be hard for moms with children younger than ours. We can't know what we haven't walked through. We can't change the journey we made based off the perspective we have now. Right now my best friend is at the phase where she's realizing it doesn't magically get better once you get through the infant/toddler years. And right now I'm at the phase where I'm realizing it doesn't magically get better once you hit the elementary years. Having lots of kids or older kids doesn't mean it is all figured out. No, we are all in this together. We are all moms.
I had a conversation with her the other night and she was bringing up things, like, "My oldest recently started doing this and this and this..." And I would nod and she would say, "When will this stop?" And I'd be like, "Girl... they are just getting started. They don't stop."
This conversation really got me thinking because when we are chatting about things it felt like my oldest was so much older than her oldest-- almost 5 years old compared to 9 years old. It feels like so long ago that I had "only" three children and was contemplating having a fourth. It feels like so long ago that I went from having one toddler to suddenly having a preschooler and toddler twins. Three mobile children felt like such a challenge. I was one mom with two hands and three kids running around in every direction! It felt like so long ago that I was waiting for certain phases to pass. What happened to my sweet baby? My sweet toddler? What's with the sass from this preschooler? What's with this level of mayhem? Why is it getting harder? Why am I busier? WHY WON'T THEY NAP?!
But when I started thinking about it from this point of view... our questions really aren't that different. Why is my 3rd grader moody? Why are my 1st graders causing absolute mayhem? Why is it harder getting out now with a 3rd grader, two 1st graders, a 3 year old, and a 1 year old than when I had a 4 year old and two 2 year olds? Why are my days so much busier than when my twin newborns came home from the hospital? Why am I getting less sleep? Why am I more stressed out? ARE MY KIDS NORMAL? AM I DOING THIS ALL WRONG?
Having children is a huge shift in how you live your life. You go from being a single adult to a parent. You have 24/7 responsibilities. I remember how hard it was with our first son. How much I cried and how worried I would be over the smallest things. I remember when our twins came home and life became infinitely busier. I don't think it was just because we brought home two babies at once; I have talked to a lot of people who said that going from one baby to having two children was a huge change for them (and possibly harder than going from no babies to your first baby). I remember all the schedules we would write up and the routines we put in place. These routines kept the mayhem at bay, but it was day in and day out work. Alarms on my phone. Days planned out before they happened. It was dreary work at times. I kept thinking that when they got older, I would be able to live a "normal" life with three children, instead of the over-scheduled structure we had in place.
Then our fourth son was born and instead of life becoming "easier" (or "normal"), our fourth baby just fell into the schedule we had in place for the older three. Granted, our schedule wasn't as structured as when our twins were infants, but it was a constant never-ending schedule. The work load never lessened from what was going on when we only had three kids. And then we had our fifth child and our "mayhem level" never went down. We had the schedule for our older three children and these two babies that I would drag around to school pick up and drop off and doctors appointments, all while working in feeding times and naps and diaper changes. There are times where I honestly feel five children has been way more work than when we had three children, but, for the most part, having five children has basically just maintained the crazy/mayhem level we hit once we had three children (especially three mobile children).
When I think back to these phases and the things that I learned during them, I think about now. I feel just as confused and overwhelmed now as I did when our twins started walking and got into everything. I vividly remember leaving the children's museum when they were toddlers and I had one toddler on my hip under my arm, another toddler dragging his legs while I held his hand with my other arm, and my preschooler laying on the ground in front of me wailing that he didn't want to leave. I thought, "How on earth do I manage THREE children having meltdowns at once?!" It was a surreal experience. And those are the times that people tell you, "Don't worry! It will get easier!" Is it easier now that my older three are in 3rd and 1st grade? No. Do they lay on the ground and throw fits while I try to man handle them out of the children's museum? (Eh... sometimes...) For the most part, no. No. It is different. They pout. They drag their feet. They argue. They negotiate. They interrupt. They beg. They get wild and silly and start chasing games. They bicker. That's what they do now when I try to leave the children's museum and they don't want to. And sometimes I'm able to shut it down with consequences, "If you don't behave, we won't come again for awhile," and sometimes their behavior doesn't adjust and I have to figure out how to get them all out of the children's museum. I can tell you, when you are being followed by a wailing 1st grader, people give you a lot of dirty looks and judging remarks, compared to when they were little and people usually offered encouraging remarks. (Instead of, "Don't worry, Momma! It gets easier!" I get, "How old is he? Why is he doing that?")
When my kids moved from their preschool/toddler behaviors into their kindergarten/elementary school behaviors, I found the moodiness, pouting, and bickering overwhelming. It felt like constant chaos. Constant pedal to the metal. Constant meltdowns. I'm not saying my children didn't bicker before... now they were just bigger. Sometimes doing it more and doing it at inopportune times when sometimes I wasn't right there to break it up. For instance, when they play in our backyard while I am in the house taking care of the baby and toddler. I will have the window open and doors open to keep an eye on them and sometimes all they do is sit out there and get into screaming, whining fights with each other. I would think that an 8 year old and 6 year olds would much rather play in the rock pit or run through the sprinklers or eat their popsicles. But, no. They would rather all grab the same shovel and screech over who gets the red shovel. They would rather get into a screaming, crying fit over arbitrary rules to run through the sprinkler. They would rather yell at each other over how one of them is eating the popsicle or who is letting it drip to much-- never mind that this argument is causing none of them to eat their popsicles and they are all coated in sticky, melting popsicle.
I kept thinking, wait, aren't they too old for this? But then I talked to more parents with older kids, their teachers, their counselors, and no. No, they are not too old for this. In fact, it is pretty normal kid behavior. What happened to, "IT GETS EASIER????" Is this easier???
So when I talk to mommas with younger kids and they say, "When will they stop this?" I shake my head because, girl, I hear you. It is exhausting. When mommas with younger kids say, "I can't wait until mine are in elementary school!" I shake my head because, girl, I thought the same thing.
It's not easier. It doesn't get better.
The newborn and toddler years are not the time to knuckle down, get through, and wait until they are tiny, well-behaved people.
There is no magical age.
My elementary kids are not easier than your toddlers. My toddlers were not harder than your elementary age kids. My twins weren't harder. My singletons weren't easier. It's all relative. It's all just different kinds of crazy.
Parenting is not something that fits in a neat, little box.
It doesn't get easier; it just is different.
Parenting involves people. Tiny people with emotions they aren't always able to control or communicate. They have wants and needs and don't always either know how to ask for those desires or don't have the vocabulary to do so. They have developmental milestones that are confusing, not just for you, but for them as well. Going through those things for the first time is a difficult process. It is hard to understand what is going on with your children-- their moods, their behaviors. How your child who slept through the night and generally enjoyed your day to day activities is suddenly waking frequently and throwing fits all through the evening. What do you do to fix this problem? And then going through it a second time you start seeing similarities. At this age and stage, my second child started having about the same behaviors as my oldest... and my next child the same. You start seeing which of those behaviors are attributed to mood and temperament and which of those are pretty much across the board childhood milestones, regardless of personality and upbringing. You figure out what isn't unique to your child and what is unique to your child.
And so, by the time you have 3 or 4 or 5 babies, you know what to expect the first year... and around 1.5 years old, 3 years old, 4 years old... but the older ages elude you. You know the sleep schedule will change around 12 weeks old, 6 months old, 1 year old, and 1.5 years old. But, is this how all 6 year olds behave? "Yes," you can say, as your 2nd and 3rd child finally hit the 6 year old age and you have the same battles with them that you did with your oldest. While at the time with your oldest, you were flabbergasted. "Why is he pouting like this? Why is he throwing fits like this?"
My problems aren't different than my best friend's. Her three kids are still a year away from elementary school, but that caught-off-guard what-am-I-doing feeling is the same. My kids just happen to be older and so when she talks about 3 year olds-- I've had 4 of those already. When we talk about 9 year olds-- eh. I'm lost. I'm on my first 9 year old and everything is confusing.
What I'm realizing is that every age and stage will probably feel like this. As my older kids head into uncharted territory-- developmental milestones and ages and stages that we haven't hit yet-- there is a really good chance that I will feel just as overwhelmed and uncertain as I did when my newborn's sleep pattern changed at 12 weeks old. Or when my baby started walking. Or when my toddler started having tantrums over everything. Or when my preschooler stopped napping. Or when my kindergartner became exceptionally argumentative. Or when my 1st grader started pouting through meals. Or when my 3rd grader became moody.
And I'm realizing also that these ages and stages will vary with each of our children. Just like how each of them teethed in their own way. Some of my kids got their teeth all in one go-- 4 teeth in a weekend! Some of my kids were happy teethers, maybe a little fussy, but not much schedule change-- and then, bam! tooth! Some fussed for weeks before the teeth came in and we had huge mouth sores over the coming in tooth that would swell and bleed. But it was all teething-- between the kids, it was just slightly different. Different because the teething happened differently for each of them. Different because they are different people with different temperaments. Different because the experience of each of them teething affected me differently based off of what was going on in my life while they were teething. Such as, our twins wailing over a mouthful of teeth over one weekend was different than baby #4 not sleeping because of his teeth coming in. They weren't always "easier" or "harder" experiences, but I handled them differently because of what was going on in our lives. When our twins were teething, I could do a lot more for them because my oldest was in preschool and we could just hang out at home. When baby #4 and baby #5 were (are) teething, I tend to have to "power through" a lot more because I can't stop life over a tooth coming in. It's all exhausting, but each child getting teeth has been a different experience for me.
I'm guessing that by the time baby #4 turns 6 years old, I will feel like a pro at the kindergarten/1st grade age, just like how now I feel like I know what to expect from the baby/toddler ages. But when baby #4 and baby #5 are hitting elementary school, my older three boys will hitting the pre-teen and teen years.
A common thing we hear as parents-- often as parents with young children-- is to enjoy it now. That makes me want to pull my hair out sometimes. I'm getting phone calls from the elementary school regarding my children's behavior. I'm meeting with the school counselor and feel massively overwhelmed with some of the behavior issues. My 3 year old is a wild man-- shredding everything he can get his hands on, running, hiding, and generally impossible to manage. My 1 year old is teething and her GI issues constantly keep us on our toes. I feel like I am under so much pressure. My oldest is definitely at the age now where he will remember how overwhelmed I've been lately. I feel like I have one chance at parenting and that I constantly just mess up-- why else are my kids being so crazy? HOW CAN I ENJOY EVERY MOMENT OF THIS?
"Enjoying" parenting doesn't mean thinking it is all fun. It doesn't mean laughing when two kids have somehow stripped their clothes off right before you are supposed to leave to catch the bus or the baby has a stinky diaper at school pick up or you have to wake the 3 year old to go pick up his brothers from school. "Enjoying" parenting doesn't mean that every weeknight dinner with homework and folders and reading logs and bedtime routine has to be the highlight of your day. It means breathing in, digging your heels in, and accepting the current chaos.
THIS IS WHERE YOUR KIDS ARE AT RIGHT NOW.
Yes, they may be going through a really hard phase-- but how will you make it easier by being angry, even if you aren't taking it out on your kids? Yes, potty training may be the absolute worst thing that ever happened to your family-- but how will you make it easier by being angry, even if you aren't taking it out on your kids?? Yes, they may wake up fighting and bickering every single morning, waking up the baby, waking up the whole house-- but how will you make it easier by being angry, even if you aren't taking it out on your kids?
My children are their own people. And strangers and outsiders can judge us all they want. I am loving my children for who they are. Meeting them where they are. Guiding their personalities, their passions, their desires, their hopes and dreams, into the people that God made them to be. My children will never be the people I envisioned-- my vision for how parenting would go. I can give them the tools and I can be consistent and I can pray over them and help them channel their energies for good. But they are their own people and I am just their parent. Just their mom. Eventually, they will be their own person, responsible for themselves and making their own choices. And my role is to prepare them for that. Not to live out the Jane Austen picturesque life I envisioned, long before ever actually having children.
Moms with many don't know everything. We don't have it all together. We don't know what we are doing. And what works for us, worked pretty much for us, individually. We can give tips and tricks. But I don't think I have all the answers for someone else. I didn't even do everything the same with all five of my kids.
We all do the wrong thing and we all have to readjust our parenting technique. What works for one kid may not work for the next. What worked at one age and stage may not work for the next. And as you grow-- you, yourself, the parent-- you may find that some of the systems and techniques you put into place no longer fit with who you are now. None of that is bad. That is normal.
Because, I promise, mommas, these ages and stages will end. In the blink of an eye, all of your current hardships will be over. It doesn't feel like that. How can 5 years pass in the blink of an eye? But it just does. All those things I just listed are things that are really hard for me right now or were things that were really hard for me at the time. Our evenings are miserable. I've really struggled this year and last year with our evening routine and my children's moods after school. Homework and reading logs are going to be the death of me.
BUT THIS IS WHERE THEY ARE. THIS IS OUR CURRENT AGE AND STAGE.
I remember when my older three were really young, when we lived in North Carolina. We had a sitter who came over once a week to put the children to bed. I was exhausted at that point in time. Going from sun up to sun down with three children, I needed a break. It was the best feeling to drive out of my driveway knowing the sitter was going to feed them dinner, get them bathed, and have all three in bed by the time I came home. When I think about our bedtime routine then compared to now, I laugh. I had three babies. We had a pretty structured routine and they were great about going to sleep. Now, when I have two 1st graders reading out loud with a 3 year old writhing in my lap and a 1 year old running around throwing fits over wanting to shred the reading log while the 3rd grader stresses over our schedule for the week... I think about how much crazier it is. I would give anything to go back to when our older three were small. Kiss their fresh from bath faces and squeeze all of them into fleece footie pajamas. When our biggest struggle was begging for drinks of water or one more hug to prolong the bedtime routine, instead of now with kids getting out of bed, running, wrestling, screeching, meltdowns over reading logs, and fussing over e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g. ("He's touching me!" "He read that book last night!" "He took my luck penny!" "Hey, I was going to sit there!" "Those are my pajamas!" "I want to wear that shirt tomorrow!" "He used my toothbrush!")
At the time though, getting the three of them to bed was really hard for me. When I think of "enjoying" parenting, I think of examples like that. I think of all the hard feelings I had inside of me-- the frustration, the anger, the exhaustion, the constant stimulation, continuously being overwhelmed. That's when I take a breath. Because I keep finding that the hard phases pass and suddenly I miss those ages and stages. I miss how simple it was then. And I really think that I will look back one day to where I am now and miss this (even those bloody reading logs). I think enjoying parenting or enjoying the phases may not be putting each phase in a neat box and telling yourself, "Okay, gotta get through the first year because the toddler years will be so much better." No. Enjoying may be more meeting your child where they are at-- not trying to get back to a "normal" of a past age and stage or trying to fit your family schedule in the neat timeline you careful arranged and printed out to hang on the fridge.
I think in parenting we keep telling ourselves that we will eventually "arrive." Eventually we will hit a point where it is easy and we feel we were successful. We hear, "Don't worry, it gets easier." And we believe it. And it is so incredibly disappointing when it doesn't happen that way. I wonder, "Am I approaching this wrong?" Maybe it's because I have a finger in every pot-- I have three children in elementary school, but I also have a 3 year old and a 1 year old at home all day. Maybe when all five are in school all day, I will say, dang this is so much easier! Maybe it is just me. But I don't think so. I think we are all discovering that each age and stage has it's challenges. That things change-- not always for the better. That kids grow up way faster than we want them to. That we can fly through the first year with a newborn in a zombie trance and suddenly we have a walking baby on our hands when we were still adjusting to being parents. That we can struggle through each day with a rambunctious toddler and suddenly they are sounding out words and heading off to school. Why does it go so fast?? Why is it so hard??
I really think that's normal. I think it's normal to be able to see the beauty in phases that have past. I think it is normal to realize other people are going through what you are going through. I think it is part of parenting to reach out to other moms, going through the ages and stages with you and to collectively wonder "WHAT IS WRONG WITH MY CHILDREN?!" I think it is normal to figure it out as you go and to make the best decisions that you can. It is probably even normal to feel like you are doing it all wrong (like I do). We are all moms. We are all hanging in there. We are all doing the best we can. The ages and stages were hard when we went through them the first time (or the first couple times). The ages and stages we are at now will be hard for moms with children younger than ours. We can't know what we haven't walked through. We can't change the journey we made based off the perspective we have now. Right now my best friend is at the phase where she's realizing it doesn't magically get better once you get through the infant/toddler years. And right now I'm at the phase where I'm realizing it doesn't magically get better once you hit the elementary years. Having lots of kids or older kids doesn't mean it is all figured out. No, we are all in this together. We are all moms.
Comments
I hear you momma. It never gets easier - its just different kinds of hard!