In The Blink Of An Eye

Sometimes I can’t wait for the kids to grow out of certain phases.

Like the highchair phase.

I’ve had a highchair in my  kitchen for 7 years straight.

I threw the seat cover away about 1 1/2 kids ago; it had turned into more of a petri dish than a cover.

Rather than keeping it cleaner, it was actually making the chair dirtier.

I don’t think I’ll be sad to see that thing go.

Number 7 is in the toilet phase.

The put-your-hands-in-the-toilet phase.

Not one of my favorites either.

Number 6 recently entered the Who has a penis? phase.

Every day it’s the same thing.

Mommy, do you have a penis?

Does Daddy have a penis?

Does Grammy have a penis?

He continues until he’s inserted the name of every single person he’s ever met into that question.

I may not bring him out in public until I’m sure he’s done with that one.

The writing and drawing on the walls phase is growing old.

I won’t miss that when it’s done.

I won’t miss the wiping and/or smearing things on the wall phase either.

The side of the vanity in the kids’ bathroom upstairs has about half a glue stick smeared on it.

I didn’t notice it until it had already dried.

So that’s is staying there until I’m positive we’ve graduated from the smear stage.

Yesterday I saw something brown smeared on the wall outside my office.

And you know what I did?

I got on my knees, crawled right up next to it, and I smelled it.

And when I confirmed it wasn’t actually shit, well, I left it there.

Apparently I’m in the fuck it phase.

But just a couple days ago, Number 5 declared that she was officially done with another major phase.

The blankie phase.

She just cut herself off cold turkey.

No reason.

No warning.

Nothing.

I have spent hours at night or right before naptime looking for that stupid blankie.

Swearing, stomping, exhaling heavily, and praying for the day the blankie phase would be over.

But now that she’s in blankie recovery, a moment I’ve been longing for,

well,

I hate it.

I should probably be happy.

Happy that she’s comfortable and confident and secure  enough to go to sleep without it.

But along with losing this dependency on her blankie in order to get to sleep…

She’s losing…

her baby-ness.

And I don’t like it.

I keep hoping this no blankie thing is also a phase.

“Don’t you want your blankie?” I keep asking.

“Are you sure you don’t need it?”

I’ve turned into some sort of psycho blankie pusher.

Ugh.

Just the other day I was complaining to someone about how draining the girl drama is.

And before you have kids people tell you all sorts of things about how hard so many other aspects of being a parent are.

How the lack of sleep, and the financial burdens, and the stress that you are possibly fucking your kids up is not easy.

But you know what the hardest thing about being a parent is?

Accepting the rate at which they grow up.

It’s happening way too fast.

And suddenly, that disgusting petri dish of a high chair in the kitchen doesn’t seem so bad anymore at all.

 

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