Counting Backwards-The Years Left

Sometimes I get frustrated with my kids and with my role as a stay-at-home mom.

The days can become repetitive.  They can be long. They can even be lonely.

Messes are continually made. Fighting among siblings is a regular occurrence. And maybe sometimes I don’t feel like answering 527 questions in a two minute time span.

And if one more person tells me that “The years go fast, cherish them!” right after I have pulled out sixteen of my own hairs, one by one, after stepping on a Lego and wiping up spilled milk, I might slap them.

Until one day when I was building a pillow fort with Gwyn and I just stopped and watched her as a thought sunk in.

My kids are four and two.  Thus, I have been a mother with kids in the house for four years.

I am a genius, I know.

But, it dawned on me that I ONLY have fourteen more years of having such a privilege. Fourteen more years of helping with projects, playing games outside and building forts.

Fourteen years of teaching  them to be polite, genuine, respectable human beings.

Only fourteen more years of waking up to scary hot breath hovering over me in the middle of the night.

Fourteen  years to tend to scraped knees, kiss stubbed toes and rub bonked heads.

I’ve got fourteen more years of painting fingernails. To be the one gifted artwork from school. To be the “scary monster” chasing screams of delight.

And that’s it.

Our first-born will be out of the house and on her own.

Out to make her own decisions and her own mistakes.

And I won’t always be there anymore to help guide or to push in the right direction.

I won’t always be there to mend a broken heart. To read a story to. To provide for.

So, looking at it from another perspective helps me on the days where I want to quit. The days where I am worn out and tired. And truly, it’s another way of saying “cherish these years, they go by fast!” and I totally understand if you want to slap me.

But, just sit on that a minute.

As always, thanks for stopping by!