Parenting

The Days Are Long, but the Years Are Short

As I sit here, my toddler is currently dipping Sun Dried Tomato Wheat Thins in syrup while waiting for his Spiderman waffles to be done. I’ve asked him about 10 times to stop dipping the Wheat Thins and his hand in the syrup. Finally I gave up. If he thinks that is tasty, to each their own.

Today marks the last day of 2018. What a year it has been. We started the year by going to the Waste Management Phoenix Open. Now I see why so many people take vacations in February, especially if you live in a snowy and bitter cold climate like us. I planned and hosted my sister’s bridal shower and bachelorette party. We then celebrated our son’s second birthday and found out we were expecting baby #2. In May we jetted off to California for my sister’s wedding. The summer and fall seasons flew by. Before we knew it we were welcoming our second son into the world. And now we are at the end of another year.

Our baby is six weeks old. Like everyone says, it is hard to imagine life without him. We do however, remember what it is like to sleep through the night. There have been so many times over the last six weeks my husband and I question if our older son sucked at sleeping like his younger brother. The answer is yes, he sucked at sleeping for the first few months too.

But just like you block out childbirth (you have to or I don’t know who would keep signing up to go through that), we seemed to block out the zombie weeks where we were rolling on little-to-no-sleep and drinking a pot of coffee per person to function like a normal person who gets a full nights sleep.

When I was pregnant with our first son, a co-worker and mama of two told me “The days are long, but the years are short. Remember, this too shall pass mama.” When you are in it, all you want is for this [ex: sleepless nights] to pass. You long for the days of “normal.” Although, after kids I do not think we know what “normal” is anymore. We keep looking for a new “normal” which currently means functioning on no sleep and lots of caffeine.

With the birth of our second son and the new year quickly approaching I find myself conflicted wishing the sleepless nights will pass soon, but also wanting time to standstill because frankly it goes by way too fast. Both of my parents always told me how quickly time/life goes by. They told me being a parent you always want more time. Before kids, I would just chalk it up as them being sappy, but now I get it. My dad passed away at the young age of 53, about a year-and-a-half ago. Time is definitely something I wish I would have had more of with him. Which got me thinking…

As parents, when we become pregnant the timer starts. We count up each week, and down to the finish line (due date). Then the timer starts in a whole new way once the baby is born. We constantly are looking at the clock for the time. Time to eat, sleep, change their diaper.

As our babies get older, everything still revolves around time. Time to get up, eat breakfast, pump, go to school/work, pick-up everyone, run to events, etc. We are constantly counting up or down to something. I could not even ballpark how many times in a day I check the time. Sometimes wishing it would speed up so everyone goes down for a nap and I can have a little peace and quiet. Then there are other times when my toddler says “he’s got this” aka he doesn’t need me and I wish time would slow down.

The truth is, the years are really short and years from now I will miss the sleepless nights and cuddles with our baby. And I will miss all four of us piling into bed on the weekends to watch cartoons before rushing about our day.

Time, there will never be enough of it. So while I will put losing the baby weight and decluttering my house as my New Year’s resolutions, I may also work with our son to stop “Scooby farting” on people and only eat syrup with pancakes/waffles, my main focus will be to soak up and enjoy every minute and every second of each day, especially with my boys. Ok let’s be real “enjoy” may be a bit of a stretch at times.

Cheers to 2019.