Unexpected Parenting Challenges: The Last Times

Being a parent is hard, but not in the way you think.  We face a series of unexpected parenting challenges as we transition with our kids through the phases of childhood, struggling with each new beginning and feeling a loss with each ending.

Yes, there are delusional moments early on with your new infant when you think it is hard because you suddenly feel a complete and overwhelming loss of freedom.

No longer footloose and fancy free (as my husband would say), you no longer have the ability to go party and have fun with your friends as you always have.  You can’t go out for an errand that turns into a road trip or fall sound asleep with the worries of the day behind you.  

A little down the road during the toddler years it moves on to feeling so tough because you can’t even go to the bathroom or shower alone. Exhausted from the day, after they’ve finally fallen asleep, you have to sneak ever so silently and stealthily out of their bed at night to make your escape.  There is still so much left to do before you can make your way to bed.

Then the real challenge hits.

Facing the last times. Realizing that an experience with your child, from breastfeeding him to changing his diaper, cradling him in your arms, picking him up to dance in the kitchen, the full on kiss on the lips, holding him fully in your lap, carrying his sleeping body to bed… Wow! That happened for the last time and I didn’t even realize it.  

Then it hits there were first times…for all of these experiences that passed by while you were exhausted, or maybe fully enjoying them in the moment, passed by so quickly.  The range of experiences you had with your young child happened so fast.  The last times come and you don’t know how to let them go.

The hardest part is tucking them in at night clinging to those smiles and hearing their little voices ever changing as they say goodnight mom, love you more, sweet dreams, see you in the morning…kissing their soft cheeks and cuddling them while you still can while knowing this too will have a last time.  

They change before your very eyes.  You begin missing the little baby they once were, the little boy they were what seems like just yesterday, and thinking the moments are numbered and this too will pass me by. 

I love them more than life. I miss every moment that came before and hate that I don’t have completely clear memories of every single smile and word, every dance, every hug.  They fade as my memory does.  The little boys before me continue changing and growing every single day. 

I absorb in the moments. I cling to them. I hope I remember these moments clearly because I am trying to be present in all of them, for now I realize how fleeting this precious gift of time is.  

Their need for me changes with each phase of their own growth.  As I hug them goodnight and kiss their cheeks, tears slip down my own because I know these moments too in time will fade as I see young men appear before me…and these young men won’t ask me to tuck them in and sing songs and tickle backs.