When you’re right in the thick of this parenting small kids thing, it’s easy to think it will never end, that you’ll always be busy, stressed, wiping noses and butts and rarely having a moment when someone doesn’t need you right this second.
But really, this slice of life is very small in the grand scheme of things. For some reason Halloween is triggering that for me, remembering how last year I was beginning to get very obviously pregnant and my daughter was enthusiastically embracing Halloween for the first time. Looking at my sweet pudgy baby son who fits so snugly into the crook of my arm, I realize it seems like just a few months ago his sister, who’s now so tall I can hardly carry her, spent most of her days carted around like this too. And I know sooner than I like to think, they’ll be doing God knows what at grownup Halloween parties and hopefully will remember to call me on Sundays.
This column from the Boston Globe really brought it home for me – in it, a mother of grown kids tells how the friends she made when she was raising her children have stuck together through the years. It started with a dinner to console and commiserate with each other the year the kids left for college, and is still going strong now, 13 years later. Some of those grown children join them now, as do grandchildren.
It reminded me that someday this will all be over – and that someday is coming much sooner than I think.
