Kali J Desautels

Last night was opening night for my daughter’s play, and as I watched her sing and dance and walk around the stage in a myriad of costumes, I kept thinking that’s it was incredible that that young lady was my baby girl. She is tall, and grown up, and animated, and dramatic, and beautiful. Since she was born, I have been told to “enjoy these years because they go by so fast” and I genuinely believed that I was doing my best to enjoy the years between all the daily messes of young motherhood, but as I watched her up there, it made me wish I could go back and start again, knowing that it’s ok for kids to throw temper tantrums, it’s ok for kids to wake you up in the middle of the night. It’s ok for kids to whine and demand that you stop doing whatever you are doing and play with them. I want to go back with all the knowledge and parental wisdom that I “knew” then, but didn’t actually comprehend, and to start over and really, really, REALLY enjoy those years. My baby girl is closer to graduating high school than she is to being a baby. My baby girl is not a baby anymore, and as much as I know I was there, I still feel like I missed it. So, new mamas, when you think we are crazy for telling you to enjoy the years of exhaustion, and diapers, and tantrums, and spilled spaghetti, and biting, and worrying that your “parenting style” is not the right one, or wishing that you had invested in the fancier stroller (stroller envy is real, my friends!!), just bear with us. It’s not condescension, it’s a genuine wistfulness. One day you will watch your 11.5 year old child do something that they enjoy and you will see them tower in height, or bravery, or maturity, and you will realize that we were right. The years went by so fast, and now your baby doesn’t need you to pick them up, your baby is a young woman/man/nonspecific and you will feel just like I do this morning.

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