I’ve learned in my decade as a mother that each and every stage has it’s own challenges.  It never gets easier.  Certain aspects get easier, but the job of parenting doesn’t.  Each stage is a tradeoff.

Poe and I will not be having any more children.  He was – er – snipped.  We decided that two kids with special needs was enough, and maxed out our emotional and financial reserves.  For one child, it’s a toss up if he’ll be a self-sustaining adult.  For him, we still have years of therapy and medication and doctors appointments and IEP meetings to get through.  For the other child, survival is of paramount importance.  For him we have years left of surgery medications anesthesia and doctors appointments.  So, we made the decision to just stop.

So for each “ending” stage, we realize it’s the last.  Although every once in a while someone passes me a baby.  You know…  The kind that doesn’t quite have their own personality yet, and smells of baby powder.  The kind who’s so young, woofling into your neck and a steady hand holding up the bum is simple paradise to them.  That’s one stage that I do miss.  The stage where you make everything right for this tiny person by simply holding on.

There are a few stages, though, that I’ve said goodbye to with joy.

Diapers.  The changing, the tossing, the necessity to be constantly prepared.

Toilet training.  The accidents, extra clothes, negotiation and head scratching.

Toddler danger where they don’t quite yet get what’s bad and dangerous and are constantly giving you heart attacks as they decide to investigate the stove.  Or street.  Or beehive.  Or howthehelldidyougetupthere place.

I do miss kindergarten though.  It was school but not school.  They didn’t have all the pressures of grades and homework, but you see their mind just expand.  That was fun.

We’re currently in a stage that I detest.  The elementary school years, where their not quite on their own with schoolwork yet, like high school.  I hate being pressured to do homework.  I detest it.  I have no patience for it.  And for crying out loud did you not listen to the instructions in class? What the heck am I to do with three triangles, a square, and no instructions?

Thank God no one has to make a volcano erupt yet, or I might just lose it.

In years to come, maybe I’ll look back with longing at these years.

Right now, we still have it simple.  Mom and dad know it all.  No is no.  We’re still in control.  Sort of.  I have to admit I’m not looking forward to girls.  Puberty.  Body hair.  Talking back.  Attitude.  Expose to language, sex, and drugs.  My oldest just turned 10 and I see these things hovering on the horizon.  I’m scared.  I’m scared to go from sleepless nights to talks about drugs.  Diapers to condoms.  Tantrums to groundings.  Kindergarten to college.

This parenting gig is kind of hard.  The totally cliche and sappy quote “Parenting is your heart forever walking around outside your body” is true.  I’m not a sappy mushy person.  But Oh, how it’s true.