Then Comes the Day

It’s a worn out cliché, but still very true: time does fly. When my daughter was born, I couldn’t fathom a day when she would feed herself, much less get dressed on her own. She was totally dependent on the loving people around her. As she grew to be a toddler, I endured the long days with twenty minute intervals of playtime and boring videos of The Wiggles and Caillou, snacktime and lunchtime and naptime, wishing for the time when it would get better. At the time, I didn’t know it wouldn’t be like this forever. Everything about parenting has its own time, its own schedule, and it goes by regardless. Before I could notice the changes, she was in Kindergarten and I felt relief that I could get things done while she was at school and spend the rest of our time together. Except she had other plans. She enjoyed playing after school with the neighbor kids, or the dog, or even alone while I watched from the kitchen window. I was no longer the one she was dependent on for companionship. I was glad that she had made the transition, and truly relieved that she could play alone or with other kids without including me. That was when she was five. Now that we are speeding toward twelve, I don’t feel so relieved. It’s the hardest part about creating a human being – eventually they leave you.

You will have regrets, of days that you put on the Baby Einstein video, maybe for several hours, and just did something else – something adult. You never get a break. You think that it will never end, that you will never get to sleep in on Saturday ever again, or be the first one into bed at night. You think that you just can’t read one more bedtime story. And then the day comes that you wake up before your teenager. Or she tells you no thanks, I don’t want to read a story together tonight. You feel the tightening in your chest, realizing that those days you waited for to be over, are over.