My life is transitioning again. Other than the actual birth of my children, there are two poignant moments in parenting that have challenged my spirit.
The first was the day I realized they wouldn’t be napping anymore. Loosing those precious couple of hours in the day sent me in a state of mourning and I was tempted to wear black all the time in a statement of what I had lost. Two young children, awake and with you all day long. Gone was the chance to get anything done. Really, I had become quite efficient at getting EVERYTHING done during their nap. Sometimes I used the time just for me. I’d make calls to friends, paint my nails, read a smutty magazine, or just stare out the window. It took me a while, but I came around and realized that the reason they stopped napping was because they were getting older and there were so many other ways I could interact and enjoy them.
I find myself in the middle of the second major transition right now. The age of late bedtimes and social lives! With a teen and a pre-teen on my hands, I really can’t get them to bed before 10 pm, and I often spend my weekends driving and picking them up from events.
At my son’s spring formal school dance there were so many beautiful people … all of them 8th graders! The moms and dads were standing, tired and scruffy hidden in the shadows of the sidewalk, admiring the outfits, shoes and hair-dos. Standing off to the side, because we knew this was their night, and we knew better than to embarrass them, but just getting a peak at their excitement would make our night.
Driving my daughter to a Saturday night birthday party, I saw a mom yawning in her car while her daughter excitedly fixed her make-up in the passenger mirror. This is where we are at now.
When you’re children don’t go to bed until 10 pm, you don’t get to sleep until at least midnight if you want any kind of time for yourself. You have to wait to have that huge ice cream sundae you’ve been craving, but didn’t want to serve up for them, you have to wait to start that movie they can’t watch, you have to wait until you’re completely exhausted to get intimate, since you have to make sure they’re completely asleep first, and you have to be willing to accept defeat when you pass out on the couch waiting for any those things to happen.
I plan to get through this parenting transition the same way I got myself through the newborn phase of waking up at all hours of the night … by keeping in perspective that one day they’re not going to want me involved in their lives at all … so I need to cherish every moment I can. The day will come when they will be able to drive themselves around, or friends will pick them up and they’ll be long gone, off to have fun without a second thought of me. The day will come when my entire busy schedule will stop, and it will just be me. For that reason, I must fight for my time and protect my precious minutes for romance, so that when that time comes, I’ve still got my own purpose, my own fun, my sanity and my husband!
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