My husband was digging through his gym bag the other day and unearthed an ancient relic.
“Look,” he said, holding up a crumpled piece of paper that I recognized as a children’s coloring page featuring Elsa and Anna from the movie Frozen. Blue and orange crayon scribbles danced across the page.
We realized that our youngest daughter had created the masterpiece years ago in the playroom at our gym. She was probably two or three at the time.
That same daughter — the baby of the family — will turn 14 next month.
How is it possible that all of those years passed at the speed of light?
When your kids are so young, you can’t look much further beyond the current moment. You’re merely trying to survive. There were tough aspects of those early years I can still recall, hazy and vague, like a scene viewed through frosted glass. The sleep deprivation. The tantrums. The middle-of-the-night fevers and stomach bugs. The backaches from lugging of all the various supplies for any excursion outside the house — the diapers and snack puffs, the car seats and strollers, not to mention the child themselves.
But there were so many sweet times, moments I didn’t appreciate until they were long gone. And lately, I’ve felt wistful for those days when my kids were little.
I miss when the problems were simpler, easily solved with a distracting toy, a juice box, or a hug.
I miss the years before smartphones and social media, when there was no temptation to constantly compare themselves to everyone else.
I miss the lazy afternoons when we’d spend hours diving into an arts and crafts project or perusing the children’s section at the library.
I miss the zany Lego creations, the dolls and all of their ridiculous accessories, the spontaneous water balloon fights in the driveway.
I miss the weekend mornings when the kids would wake up early — so early — and we’d flip on an episode of Peppa Pig or Bubble Guppies so the grownups could sneak in a few more minutes of precious sleep.
Most of all, I miss the way I thought I could keep my kids safe, if only because they were so small and they needed me almost constantly.
But the idea that I could keep my kids in a cozy bubble with me was always an illusion. As my mother used to say, eventually we have to leave the nest. Now I understand how she felt when she said she wished we could stay little forever.
As nostalgic as I feel for those old days of coloring pages and Disney princesses, I’m also excited to see the people my kids are becoming. Watching them grow up and find what they’re passionate about is a gift. And raising them is the biggest privilege and challenge I’ll ever experience.
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