9 Reasons Why Big Kids are the Bomb

When my kids were younger, I confess I pitied moms of older kids. It seemed to me that as friends' kids got to be about 7 or 8, the kids became louder, not quite so adorable, and frankly, kind of annoying. When my oldest started Kindergarten, I mourned. I knew we were entering a new stage in life, and that my daughter would change in some amazing ways, but I knew that she would soon be almost unrecognizable from the toddler/preschooler I cherished so much, and I dreaded it.

I knew I would love my kids as they grew older, but what I didn't know is that these years would bring their own magic that would sweep me up completely, leaving me to wonder how I ever could have thought that the preschool years would be my favorite. 

My older two kids are 8 and almost 7, and they have opened up a whole new world of parenting and family for me.

1. Sharing Hobbies

This picture was the absolute highlight of my two weeks of Christmas break. Last winter I fell in love with cross-country skiing, and this winter we bought stuff for the kids so that they could learn as well. Over the break, my husband and I took them to a local trail we love to ski, and I felt like my heart was going to explode with happiness. "Here I am, doing what I love! And my kids are loving it too!" I kept sneaking glances at them, their flushed and happy faces, their quiet concentration - surrounded by our beautiful Alaskan trails - and I truly couldn't imagine a happier place to be.

2. Watching Them Learn is Amazing

While of course I cherish the memories of those first shaky steps toward walking, watching and listening to the things they learn as older kids is so cool. The other day, my 6-year-old and 8-year-old, who are in a 1/2 combo class together, were having a conversation about supply and demand and I swear it was the cutest thing I've ever heard. Beginning with learning to read, and moving on up through multiplication and division (and supply and demand) I have been endlessly fascinated to watch them learn these big-kid skills. Just watching how their brains put information together, process it, and internalize it - both of them so different in their learning - it never gets old for me.

3. Playing Games

I love that the kids are old enough to play games that the whole family can legitimately enjoy. Our family just discovered Ticket to Ride and Apples to Apples Disney, and we've been having so much fun. The games don't end in tears, there's no careful calculations on the parenting pros and cons of "letting" them win Candyland - just fun. Together.

4. Long Conversations on the Beach

Not really on the beach. But I LOVE talking to my kids now that they're older. The other night at bedtime tuck-ins, my (always-stalling) 8-year-old and I had an in-depth conversation on teacher's unions, health insurance, and career choice. And then sometimes we're just silly and laughing, and sometimes I'm hearing about their day, down to the last detail. But I can get lost in conversations with them in a way that's brand new, and something I hope I have at least 50 more years to enjoy. 

5. Just this:

"I'll take the yellow cup. I don't care what color I have." I fall to the ground in worship.

6. Sharing Books & Music

My own kids aren't quite old enough for this year, but my 10-year-old cousin is a reader, like me. I love curling up on the couch with her and looking for new books on Goodreads, reading the same ones at the same time, and discussing them afterwards. My kids and I also like the same music, and rock out together to our favorite Pandora stations. Shhhhh.... I'm a terrible parent in what I let my kids listen to. I did feel vaguely ashamed last night when my kids and I were all dancing and singing to lyrics that included, "Says she won't, but I bet she will." Uh, whoops. And let's not discuss Blurred Lines.

7. They Get Funny

Sarcasm and teasing are some staples of our family dynamics, and as my kids get older, they're definitely learning! Listening to them play with language and come up with jokes that are actually funny, make a hilarious remark with perfect comedic timing, or lovingly tease me about all the naps I take - while both my big kids were funny as preschoolers, they are getting downright hilarious now.

8. They're Still Adorable

How could I have thought older kids weren't cute? They may be getting less cute to strangers and acquaintances, and I'd be lying if I said that my precocious 4-year-old doesn't captivate every crowd, but my older kids are at this beautiful stage where I can still see the little people they were, and I can catch a glimpse of the big people they are going to become. Which leads me to....

9. They Become People

I love watching my kids grow into themselves. What sports and activities do they choose? One is obsessed with sports and learning to play hockey, the other loves fashion and carefully plans out each accessory. Who do they hang out with at school? How do they handle challenges? What do they think about social issues? I feel now, more than ever, I am starting to glimpse my kids as tweens, as teenagers, as adults. I feel like I'm getting to know them as people. And pretty cool people, at that.

What a gift of parenting, yes? To think that every stage is the best? I anticipate some challenging years ahead, but I know that these guys will continue to grow and amaze me in ways I could never now imagine. But for today, I feel like I'm in parenting nirvana. Though I have probably just jinxed myself, and tomorrow will end with a foot-stomping, sobbing tantrum of epic proportions. Because those still happen.

"Help Me" Monday: Touched Out

Photo Credit visualphotos.com

So I feel like a jerk of a mom with what I'm about to confess. My kids are suffocating me lately. I try really hard to be a good mom, and the relationships I have with my kids are so precious to me. But because of how close we are, they're killing me lately.

All three of them want to be physically next to me at all times. All day long I hear, "I want to be by you, Mommy. Come with me, Mommy. I can't go to the bathroom without you Mommy! I sit on your lap? Can I style your hair? Mom, that was my spot! I was sitting by you! I don't want to sit by Daddy, only Mommy! No, Mommy do it!" I have three kids, and two hands. The devastation that occurs EACH and EVERY time we cross a street or a parking lot and there is someone who can't directly hold my hand is earth-shattering. The fighting that rages over who is next to me and who is left out is constant. They want to sit in my LAP during dinner (um, no). They want to hover on both sides of me looking over my shoulders as I check Facebook. They nearly come to blows over who sits next to me at breakfast.

It makes me want to whip around and scream, "COULD YOU ALL JUST STOP TOUCHING ME FOR FIVE MINUTES!?!!?" I find myself delirious with joy when I have to pee, just because it will buy me 90 seconds of personal space.

And then I'm wracked with guilt. My kids want to be by me (touching me, at all times) because they love me. And I adore them. But there is only so much physical contact by body can take. Am I a freak? Do other people feel like this? It's not having them around me - I love hanging out with them. It's the constant touching. Con. Stant. From when they wake up to when they go to bed, crying for me to please lay next to them (all three of them, simultaneously).

They're normally fairly independent, well-rounded kids with lots of interests and friends, so I'm hoping this is a phase. Maybe summer boredom? Nothing to do but lean into Mommy's lap to watch her read e-mail, while digging your bony elbows into my inner thighs?

So I need ideas. My kids are 6, 5, and 2. How do I talk to my them (particularly my older two) about personal space? I try to just say something like, "I need you to get off my lap for a little while and just sit next to me for a little while." That's not even really good enough for me and they still look like I just killed their puppy. I adore my children. They are my favorite thing in life. But my body can only take so much man-handling in any given day. Nothing I say to them has worked, so I need new ideas. Readers, come out of hiding and help me out here. I'd rather you didn't tell me how much I suck for feeling this way, though. Just tell me how to nicely break to to my kids that having a cumulative 115 lbs. of child hanging off my body for 12 hours a day is getting a little old and Mommy's going crazy. Thanks.

Motherhood Real-Life: I Hated Breastfeeding

(Gratuitous cute pic of my son I mention in this post. Because I hate posting without a pic. 

Plus, pretty sure I had just been nursing here - note Boppy pillow and scrunched up shirt.)

Yes, I am ready for the social backlash for that comment. I will preface this post by saying that I'm in no way trying to argue the fact that breastfeeding is a wonderful thing, the best thing for a baby. I'm not trying to negate the fact that it was the most precious time you had with your baby. I'm not trying to rub salt in the wound that you desperately wanted to nurse and couldn't.

I'm just saying. I hated it. This is tantamount, I think, in today's mommyland, to my saying that I don't make my kids eat what I made for dinner. Inconceivable! But I don't think it does new mothers any favors to pretend that everything is sunshine and rainbows. Not everybody loves to breastfeed. Not everyone even likes it. Nursing caused me to feel overwhelming anxiety and resentment toward my baby. And I'll be honest, I'm selfish and a control-freak, which further complicated the situation.

Here's the thing. I tried to love it. Everyone loves it. And even if you don't love it, you at least stick with it for the good of your child and their health. That's what good moms do. Right?

But then here's what happened. I did a decent job with my first. Nursed until she was almost six months. Respectable enough (but never did like it). Then I had my second when my oldest was 18 months. Still a baby herself, really. And oddly enough, she did not GET why I had to make myself completely unavailable to her for eternal (to her) lengths of time every few hours. Having kids close in age is a lot of work. Having a husband who is rarely home is a lot of work. Breastfeeding is also a lot of work, especially if you happen to have breasts that dispense milk in super-slo-mo. And I found myself resenting it. Baby #2 would cry, my husband would hand him to me and ask, "Do you want to nurse him?" and I would snarl something like, "Do I want to nurse him? Not really. But I want him to live and all, so someone's gotta feed him." Tender, right?

So I sat down and thought about it. Why was I nursing? It was the best thing for my baby. But... that wasn't really why I was nursing. I was nursing because I was scared to say I had stopped. Especially because I had stopped for no good reason. Just because I didn't like it. "Well, see, I was getting really sick of being the only member of my family who was constantly having their dinner interrupted to go breastfeed, so... you know..." Nope. Couldn't do it.

I once had a well-meaning friend, right after I stopped breastfeeding, innocently ask me, "You know breastfeeding is the best thing for your baby, right?" As my brain thought, Really? I have NEVER heard that before! Fascinating! my mouth said, "Just because breast milk is the best thing for your baby doesn't mean that breastfeeding is the best thing for your family." And that's what it came down to.

I wanted to look back on my son's infancy and treasure those memories. I did not want them to be clouded by resentment and irritation toward him simply for needing to eat. My husband was dealing with a crazy, snarly meanie (me, obviously). My daughter was spending vast amounts of time wandering around the house unattended at the tender age of 1. I was up all night feeding my son, and then got to handle the joys of parenting 2 babies while my husband was gone 14-16 hours a day. It was not working.

I was wracked with guilt. What would people say? What would I say when they asked why I wasn't nursing? I had never, ever heard another mother say they had stopped breastfeeding because they simply didn't like it. I imagined the stony-eyed silence at Playgroup.

But I did it anyway. I wanted to enjoy my little guy. And whatever the personal demons that were causing me to feel this way, I didn't really care. So I stopped. Pumped for a while, then switched him over to formula.

The weird thing was that after that I LOVED feeding him. It was like when I was a kid, the difference between cleaning my room when it was my own idea versus cleaning it because my mom made me. I loved to snuggle him and coo to him and stroke his face while he ate. And as my joy in mothering him returned, my guilt quickly disappeared.

And oddly enough, no one cared. If people asked, I just said, "It wasn't working out for us." And that was that.

I read someone on the internet once say that her doctor gave her some sort of depression-related diagnosis having to do with this anxiety and resentment over breastfeeding. I'm not going to say that I'm 100% positive that it didn't partially have to do with post-partum depression on the chance that it does. I'm not going to chalk it up to that on the chance that it doesn't, and I'm just a really selfish mom. The truth is that I don't know what caused these feelings. I just know that they were real to me.

I guess the point here is that we need to be real with each other. Be honest about the difficulties of new motherhood and the options we have. And when someone chooses something different from us, to be gentle with each other. Motherhood is tough enough as it is.

Down and Dirty: Motherhood Real-Life

I have been lucky enough to have lots of wonderful girlfriends who aren't afraid to be real about motherhood and put the truth out there. However, I know that not everyone has those friends, and that some people wonder if they're the only one in the world who feels "this way" about motherhood. You're not. There are some people (probably) who adore every minute of motherhood, and they cherish every stage of infancy and childhood, etc. But from my experience, most of the rest of us don't feel like that. So let's get real.

The obvious disclaimer is that I adore my kids. I love being a mom. I am grateful I can get and stay pregnant, and deliver a healthy child. But it's not all pink onesies and roses. Motherhood can be hard. Really hard.

I want to do a couple of posts about the less glamorous side of motherhood, the feelings that are sometimes hard to talk about. And for this first one, I want to start at the beginning.

When I was pregnant with my first, a woman I know had us over for dinner and gave me some advice. "Just so you know," she said in her timid, kind voice, "having that first baby is really, REALLY hard. I don't know why, but no one ever told me that. And I wish that they had." I rubbed my belly and nodded, thinking I understood. I didn't then, but I did later.

Having my first baby changed my life. And I kind of liked my life the way it was. I had a job that I was good at, I had friends I loved spending time with, a family I enjoyed traveling to see on a weekly basis, and a husband I didn't see much to begin with. Then.... I had my daughter. And of course in some ways my life began that day. But in other ways, the life I had known ended. And I mourned that. And I felt stupid for mourning it, which made me feel worse.

No longer did I spend my days doing something I felt skilled at. Instead I spent them in the servitude of a screaming infant who apparently hated me. Was I doing this all wrong? Was I bad at this? I hate being bad at things, anything, and this was the biggest thing of all! Did my daughter hate me? Why was she crying so much? No one around to answer my questions other than the internet, which only provided me with horror stories or smugness.

And it was so PERMANENT! Marriage had been a big decision, but if you really regret it, there's always a divorce. But once you have a kid, barring unspeakable tragedy, you have a kid. Even if you don't stay married to the kid's father, even if you don't have custody of that kid, you are a MOM to someone running around on this earth. And that feels pretty heavy sometimes, for a decision that can be made pretty flippantly (or even made for you by good old Mother Nature).

While older women counseled me to "savor every moment," and "enjoy each stage" because "time goes so fast," I was horrified that this was supposedly the pinnacle of motherhood. EVERYONE enjoys this sweet and tiny phase, everyone! Well, not me. It's hard when you don't know their schedule yet. You don't know what their cries mean. They don't seem to know you or love you. You're not sleeping, you're attempting to breastfeed (PS - also HARD!), you can't even figure out how to collapse the stupid stroller while they're squalling in their carseat and all the strangers are looking at you and probably thinking that you are a pretty sucky mom. I remember sitting on the floor of my hallway bawling into my hands while my daughter cried, and wondering if we had enough money in our checking account to leave this mess I'd created and go get a hotel in Palm Springs and lie by the pool sipping a daiquiri (we didn't).

And all the while, every time you go out, you hear this: "Oh, is she a good baby? Is she sleeping through the night? Don't you just love it?" And the answer can't be no! What kind of a mother says no to those things? "A good baby? No, she isn't. She just screams all day. Bummer, huh?" Can't say that.

Honestly, I think it would have alleviated a lot of anxiety for me to just know - it's okay not to love it. The newborn phase is HARD. It's okay, even, to hate it sometimes (that stage, I mean). Now several years later I've had a lot of  laughs with my friends at those early days. If I had a nickle for every time I've said or heard, "If I could give birth to a six-month-old, I would!" then I would have the beginnings of a college fund for my kids. But no one ever said that to me then.

I guess I'm just writing this because I want new moms to know that it's okay to feel really, really overwhelmed by motherhood. It doesn't make you a bad mom, or mean that you shouldn't have had a kid, or that you shouldn't ever have another one. It just means you're exactly like thousands, maybe millions, of other moms out there. It's just not so glamorous to talk about. Anyone else want to 'fess up to having a hard time with the newborn stage? Or am I about to get flamed in a really big way because now you all think I'm an ungrateful, crappy mom? I'll be honest, I'm a little nervous. But.... posting anyway.