My kids are in a glorious stage right now. And by right now, I mean, RIGHT NOW – i.e., this very afternoon. What they will be like in 48 hours, I cannot say. But RIGHT NOW, they are playing easily together, making up silly stories and songs, spinning like dervishes in the living room in their princess dresses. Piper is building contraptions and perfecting her cartwheel. Molly is giving her animals their baths and pretending to be a sleeping bird in a nest. Daughter No. 1 just bit off a chunk of her one single jellybean to share with No. 2 without being asked (okay, it wasn’t exactly an even split, but still).
I’m filled with pride and glee. But at the same time, there’s a voice in the back of my head that says, “When will my other children turn up? And what are they plotting while I’m distracted by these adorable, giggling, jellybean-sharing imps?”
One of the first life lessons of parenthood is that everything – everything – is a stage. This is the mantra we all repeat to ourselves after the little people are in bed at night, when we pour a drink, pray for endurance, and place our hopeful bets that this will be the last week of the backtalk/bedwetting/biting/waking at dawn/throwing food/lying/refusing to eat/hitting/whining/crying every time you leave stage.
Whatever the biggest current problem is, we are soothed by the idea that it simply cannot last forever. We will soldier through it. Whether we’re just a few weeks or many years into parenthood, we all know the indisputable truth of this too shall pass. How quickly is another story; some stages last days or weeks, others a year or more. Still, you can hold on to this knowledge like a lifeline when you hit the darkest patches, understanding that you will come out on the other side, where this particularly vexing issue is a memory (and another unexpected one has popped up in its place).
The problem, then, with this whole theory is that if the particularly unpleasant stages are temporary, then the particularly lovely ones are, too. Sure, you can be blessed with a stretch of unbelievably good sleeping, good eating, and good behavior and be tempted to think, “Wahoo! This is my new reality!” You knock on wood and pray for it to last – well, forever. But is it fair to expect small kids to cycle through the challenging stages and not to cycle also through the smooth ones? Unfortunately, no. All you can do is praise and encourage the good stuff you see, and hope – as all parents do – that the easy stages will get longer and longer, and the hard ones will get shorter and shorter. At least until they hit puberty, when I understand that all bets are off.
And in the meantime? Don’t miss those wonderful stages, and don’t take them for granted by thinking they will stretch out indefinitely. Revel in them. Drink them in. Try your best to imprint them into your brain to get you though whatever challenge is coming around the bend. Remember that stages are normal and that kids have to move through them to get to the next place, leaving their previous selves in the rearview mirror and showing you some new talent, skill, or development that you didn’t even know they were working on. It’s a bumpy road, but an exciting one.
I would love to hear what stage you are in, and how you are coping with it. In the meantime, I’ll be in the living room, dancing around in circles with my perfect children.
