Nobody warned me about this part.
I was ready for the baby stage. I read the books, bought and made way too many burp cloths, and knew exactly what to do with a fever at 2 a.m. What I wasn’t ready for was the day my girls stopped needing me in all the ways I’d gotten good at.
The moment I couldn’t carry them on my hip like I had gotten used to. The moment my oldest told me not to worry, she was going to make her sister a sandwich.
That stuck with me for days.
For so long, my whole job was doing. Feeding, dressing, carrying, fixing. Now they make their own breakfast (sort of) and pick out their own clothes (very much), and some days I feel like a checklist they already finished without even being asked.
That’s when I understood they still need me.
It just looks different.
They need me when the story is long, and in my house the story is always long. They need me for questions that don’t have easy answers. For the hard days.
For the car, when somebody decides to tell me everything right as we pull into the driveway. (You know what I mean).
That said, I deeply miss the little years. Some nights I scroll through old pictures and find myself crying, wishing I could live those moments again. And just like that, one of my girls says something so funny I’m laughing out loud over the stove, and I think, I really LOVE this girl.
Honestly, I don’t think we have to pick one feeling over the other.
Ecclesiastes 3:1 says there’s a time for everything and a season for every activity under heaven.
The baby years were a season God gave me, and so is this one, as different as they may be. He isn’t surprised by who my girls are becoming, or by how much I’m still figuring out.
He is still in control of it all.
I don’t know how my mom did it, but I find myself wondering if that’s why we became such great friends. Maybe that’s why, to this day, we call each other multiple times a day to say, “Can you believe what just happened?”
(I share more of my story on my About Me page.)
Here are a few things I’m trying right now to grow our relationship:
- Asking questions that open things up. “What made you laugh today?” gets me a lot further than “How was school?”
- Keeping one small thing that’s just ours. Simple things like a grocery run with my oldest.
- Listening before I fix. I’m bad at this. Working on it. Every. Single. Day.
- Letting them do what they can do now, even when it takes three times longer.
- Praying over them every night, for the mom they need today and for God to open their understanding as much as mine.
So if you’re crying over baby pictures on Tuesday and laughing at your tween’s attitude on Wednesday, you’re fine. You’re present, and at the end of the day, that’s all that matters!
What surprised you most when your kids got older? Tell me in the comments. I read every one.
I’m working on a free printable called 12 Connection Questions for Moms + Growing Kids. COMING SOON.
Growing right alongside them,
Claudia
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