There is a family in our neighborhood with two girls, probably around 8 and 6. I’ll often see them on walks with their dog and daydream about the future1.
Once we’re there, I say to myself, we’ll be living.
For one, I won’t have to sneak down to the basement for 30 minutes to write this because both of our daughters woke up screaming at 5:30 and 6:15 respectively, and it took a good hour for both my wife and I to revert them both back to homeostasis.
Routine obligations that I used to not think twice about—like today’s quest of figuring out the 10 minute interval in which I’ll be able to go outside to water the new grass seed—will no longer require AP Physics-level problem solving. And if there is vinyl plank flooring for our kitchen that’s been sitting in the basement for 18 months (like it currently is), this will be more due to personal neglect and not the fact that there is no 5ish hour window in which both kids out of the house for me to install the floor.2
***
I was picking up my Older Daughter (almost 3 y/o) from camp recently when a mom looked at Younger Daughter (15 months old) with that same expression that I look at that family with the 8 and 6 year-old girls.
This mom’s youngest child is probably around 9 months. Seeing my 15 month-old walking around the halls, babbling, and being much more a toddler than a baby, she noted that she couldn’t wait until her kid was at this phase. Holding her baby while also dealing with a 3 year-old was getting a bit tiresome, she said.
I knew where she was coming from, having lived that insanity for several months. The sheer fact that Older Daughter is now in camp every weekday morning and soon will be in pre-school every weekday morning, represents a sort of progress I was dreaming about for months.
But I also refrained from the MY CHILD-itis3 response that I wanted to come back with.
I wanted to tell her that in many ways, it’s a lot more annoying now. Younger Daughter walking means that I literally can’t take my eye off of her; I’ll go in the kitchen to fill up a pot of water, and she’ll have managed to climb a chair.
She gets into Older Daughter’s stuff, causing constant fights and strife. She’s getting a little too heavy to go in the baby carrier but often refuses to go in the stroller, so I often have to let them both walk places, a scene that is often completely unhinged. They do sometimes hold hands while walking, which is indeed at cute as it sounds.
So instead of telling this mom that taking both girls to the park now requires the agility and skill of Darrelle Revis in his prime4, I simply nod in agreement and ensure her that it does in fact, get better.
***
Younger Daughter is now 15 months old. Her time as a baby was not the easiest, but I’ve slowly begun to think of some moments nostalgically. The time when she first pulled a blanket over her head to play peek-a-boo. How she’d raise her arms in anticipation for the drop whenever we played Gangnam Style, a song she went nuts for over the course of several weeks. The many months in which she wouldn’t sleep in the crib, instead lying on me while I watched all of Better Call Saul at 2am.
I think of the future. If all goes to plan5, I’ll be going back to school in about a year to get a master’s, then hopefully begin my career anew as a teacher. We’ll be in a completely different phase of parenting. Driving to activities, events at the (gasp) elementary school. They’ll tell me stuff about American history they learned in class, and I won’t be able to restrain myself from weighing in.
There is so much of this I can’t wait for, and equally, there is so much that we currently deal with I can’t wait to be out of. But I know so much better than to wish the time away. There is a sense of purpose and meaning of raising young children who are so utterly dependent on you, so enamored and obsessed with your presence, that I know anything else I do in life will probably feel empty in comparison.
In The Man He Sees In Me, Luke Combs sums up this feeling when talking about the day his son no longer sees him as the world’s greatest superhuman; when he realizes that he’s just a flawed person doing is best.
I hope he never finds out that I didn't hang the moon
And I've never scared a monster out the closet in his room
One day between him leavin' home and drivin' on my knee
Maybe I'll finally be the man he sees in me
Right now, putting Older Daughter to sleep requires lying on the floor with her somewhere between 10-30 minutes. She’ll sing, occasionally open up about her day, and ask hilarious questions. But mostly she needs me or her mom to be there with her, because when we are there, she is always OK.
When that is gone, I’ll be devastated. And I know the heartbreaks will only keep on coming.
1 If it’s up to me, we definitely won’t have a dog. Also, I doubt it’ll be up to me.
2 Yes, we should hire someone to do this. But also, you have to draw the money line somewhere. And also, we’d still have to get the kids out of the house for the day. And also, I’d actually really like to do it myself.
3 MY CHILD-itis is a disease that all parents are afflicted by, in which anything difficult that another parent/child is dealing must be immediately compared to some hardship you and your child are currently enduring.
4 One of the great travesties of being a stay at home dad is the amount of great sports references that go unsaid due to the fact that nobody will get them.
5 Not even sure why I’d assume this is likely.
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