I Told You So

I have a dirty little secret-I used to spend most of my children's early years wishing they would hurry up and get bigger. I love babies and toddlers, but just in a "I can give you back" sense. Grocery shopping was always a logistical nightmare for me, especially when my youngest child was a tiny baby. I was having a terrible time adjusting to three children, to say I was stressed was an understatement. I was like a dry piece of wood...easy to snap. One morning, feeling inspired to 'try harder', I dragged all three children to our local grocery store. It was a total disaster. My youngest was in an infant carrier, so she was slept the entire time. My older two decided to play food tag in the aisles, earning me dirty looks and disapproving lip purses from some of the older patrons. I must have looked dangerously on edge, because a little old lady came up to admire the baby and said "Oh, they grow up so fast, you will wish they were little again."

I, wanting to get the hell away from this crazy woman, decided to humor her. I must have mumbled something like,"Oh, yes,they sure do grow up fast!" when I was thinking about taking my grocery cart and running away. The rest of my trip in the store, I got madder and madder. How dare that crazy old bat imply I wasn't being a good mother by wishing my children's childhoods away. Oh, I was mad, and I fumed for weeks about it. Did I stop wishing my kids would grow up so they wouldn't need me quite so much? No. I needed them to get older so I could take a breather every now and then. Did I feel guilty about it? Hell yes! When you are a "Good Mother" you treasure everything, and would never, ever wish your kids would be older so it would make your life a tiny bit easier. That would be horrible, and selfish, and wrong. So, I locked that wish far, far away. I still wished it, I just kept it to myself.

Fast forward to last week. Strep throat had come for a visit, and his buddy fever was staying. Everyone was sick, and sprawled out on the couch, zoning out in front of TV. I looked down at my oldest child, soon to be 11. She did look almost the same as when she was little..nope not anymore. Holy cow, she takes up almost the whole side of our sectional,and all the blanket, and her feet don't really fit anymore. Then she turned her head to look at me, and I thought, her face looks different me me. She is losing that baby fat from her cheeks. My middle child too. The hair has grown out, he has a shoe growth spurt (again). I got really panicked all of a sudden, and went to find my three year old. She would still be small, round and cherubic. I found her rifling through my makeup case, trying to find lip gloss so she can, "be fabulous." Really, she said she needed to be fabulous. Then she sashayed off to find a glitter tutu, singing a Rihanna song down the hallway. I spent the day in a serious funk, convinced that it would be puberty, and dating, and college and marriage for all of them at warp speed. I would be 50 soon, and that would be proof of how horrible I was for being such a selfish mother for all those years.

I do wish they were smaller so I could redo all the times I yelled at them for frustrating me. I admit that old lady in the store was right. I see the teenagers in my neighborhood and they scare me. I'm getting small previews of what's to come with my oldest child, and she can drive me to drink at 10 am. I'm trying to approach it differently, but I still feel horribly guilty. Will it fade over time? I hope so.