Appreciate What You Have...

Oh, the little years...

As Summer keeps marching on, I've been noticing how different life is without a little one.  Any mom of one of these bundles of joy will tell you how tiring it is.  Entertaining, chasing, disciplining, enforcing naptime, dealing with them after an unsuccessful nap, changing them...its exhausting.  And so many in the middle of the little years can't wait to be done with them--myself was definitely included. 

I remember seeing how much easier it got when Molly turned three--that was the turning point for her.  She could sit for more then 30 seconds and do something.  She could go to the bathroom all by herself--no assistance.  She could even begin to do some things for herself like get a drink or put on her own clothes/shoes.  As I chased and sweat behind the dust cloud of my 18 month old boy two Summers ago, I remember dreaming of days I'd get to go to the park and just sit on a bench and chat with other moms.  Or when I could go to Subway and not have to pick up every bag of chips from the floor.

I'd think...there'll be a day when I don't have to pull him off of things everywhere we go, like at the fair.

I'd tell myself it'd be quiet someday, the fighting wouldn't be so non-stop...

I knew that the tantrums would get less frequent (although there really wasn't too many from Drew, Molly....), they wouldn't yell at me forever...

I knew there'd be a day for all of this...but I just had to wait. 



Are you seeing where I'm going with this?  Now I'm here.  I do just sit on a bench at the park.  I go to the pool, and the last time, I brought a book--can you imagine?  And I actually read it-ha! 

I can take Molly with me to a "play date" and it's more moms chatting within sight/earshot of kids instead of right in the middle on top of them.  And at the family reunion over the weekend in Iowa, for the first time I did more chatting than chasing.  I note these things.  I may even enjoy it for a moment, thinking how much "easier" it is now.  And in the very next moment, I feel like the worst mother in the world for it.

I feel totally terrible that I could even think it's easier without my Drew.  My heart screams inside of me, "Wait!  This shouldn't be!!  You aren't suppose to be here yet!!"  I was suppose to have two more years of littles.  I should be chasing around my baby boy.  I should be at my wits end because he decided not to nap and now he's a mess.  I should be the one still dreaming of these more hands-free days.  But here I am.  And it doesn't feel at all like I imagined it.  I can't really enjoy it like I planned, since the price I paid for this "freedom" was far too high.

After all those years of looking forward to this position--I'd give it up in heartbeat to be chasing my little one again. Even if it is more calm, simpler in some ways, it certainly is not easier to carry around this weight of grief.  To endure this ache in my heart everyday as I sit at the pool with my book.  I'm wrong, this is not the easier way.  Less chaos, more downtime, less physical, yes.  But the emotional and mental energy it takes to walk around this house where my baby boy used to be, to be around the kids he would be playing with, and to see Molly riding solo in their Gator each afternoon is NOT easier than chasing around a crazy two year old boy.  I'd do anything to be following the dust cloud behind my Drew again.  To be physically tired from chasing him around all day, not emotionally tired from holding back tears all day instead, I'd much rather be.

I feel myself getting upset sometimes listening to other moms complain about little ones, and how exhausting it is. And I get it, I really do!  Because I remember a time not too long ago I was one of them.  I want so badly to tell them, "Stop.  Just stop.  Appreciate what you have!!"  But I also know no amount of "appreciate what you have" would have changed my mood some days two years ago when I had reached my max with my two littles. 

And thinking about it now, maybe I'm not really upset at other moms, because their reality is their reality.  Some days, I know, you really have just had enough.  Maybe I'm really mad at myself.  Mad at the time I lost playing that just-waiting-for-them-to-grow-up game. I didn't appreciate what I had.  I wished the little years away, and tragically, I got my wish.  I know its not rational guilt, it was natural to be exasperated, and I couldn't have known.  But I cringe every time I remember saying, "I can't wait until Drew's three, we'll be able to do so many more things!", because that day never came...

It took hearing, "there is a large mass, and there's a small chance it's not cancer" to wake me up from my daydreaming of easier days with older kids, to appreciate the everyday.  To choice joy, instead of exasperation.  To take the extra time to go the long way home so we could go over his favorite "bumpy choo-choo tracks", and I could hear his little laugh from the back seat. 

To smile as he sang Jingle Bells to me in the middle of the night after a total bed/pajamas/diaper change from Chemo sick.  To let him push around that annoying little shopping cart at the grocery store and chuckle at him loading jars of pickles into it. 

And to enjoy his antics instead of being annoyed by them at the kid music group, even if it was at the hospital playroom. 

Or to actually sit and colored with him, on his tray over his hospital bed.

I guess I did enjoy some of the little years, I didn't lose them all. I did stop dreaming about when he'd be older and savor the time I had.  Its just too bad what it took to open my eyes.  I write here so hopefully some who aren't as caught up in their little years like I was, who aren't so tired they can't see straight to read this, can have their eyes opened a little bit without all the heart ache I've withstood.  Without paying the price I've paid for perspective.

There are tons of articles telling moms of littles that they're going to miss these little years, almost all of which are written from the perspective that kids grow up, and you miss them little.  I'm telling you as one mom who's never did grow up, you will miss these little years, so cherish them.

So instead of trying to tell you to appreciate what you have in mid-chase of your two year old at the park, or as I watch you clean up a mess on the verge of tears at what's ruined, or as we are interrupted for the 60374730th time by your little one, I'll tell you now.  In a moment of non-conflict, when you have a minute to yourself because you are reading this--Appreciate what you have.  And I hope it comes across not in a lecturing or guilt trip way, but in a sincere, "I wish I would have" way.  Because you never know when it could all be taken from you in a year's time. 

So hug those babies in the middle of the night when they're sick.  Still make them take a nap, but don't totally lose it if they don't.  I know you're tired and exhausted--go to bed early, so you can have the energy to chase them another day.  And know that when you see me at the pool reading a book, or browsing the adult section at the library while Molly's on the computers, or walking through the grocery store alone since Molly's at a friend's, that what you can't see is how much I'm hurting inside.  You can't tell from my polite smile as I watch you with your crazies that I would trade phases of life with you without question if I could just have my Drewy back....