“You’re gonna miss this.”
“The days are long but the years are short.”
I started out motherhood believing these little pieces of advice. I held my kids tight and I threw them ridiculously elaborate birthday parties and I reveled in the three little miracles that my husband and I basically conjured out of thin air. I felt like superwoman for a while there. I still remember the days when I considered myself the working, breastfeeding, healthy choices mom that had it together.
We had Mommy Days where we baked cakes and cookies and stayed in our jammies all day long. We did puzzles and played board games and had Backyardigans marathons where I sat down on the couch and smelled their hair and held them close. We went on adventures to the zoo and we grew vegetables and we enjoyed one another.
Our Mommy Days started nine years ago. After my daughter was born, I requested a reduced schedule at work so that I could have one day a week to be at home with her. My husband and I gave up a bunch of money that we didn’t even have so that I could spend one precious day a week with the kids.
We’ve always called them Mommy Days and I can distinctly remember each of my three children waking up and the first words out of their mouths being, “Is it my Mommy Day today?” They all looked forward to them but over the years, at some point I started to dread them.
It was five years ago now that my third baby was born and I don’t remember much about my Mommy Days since then. I remember glimpses here and there but nothing concrete. Mostly I just remember it being hard. At some point between my second and my third kid in a five year window, the laundry and the number of shoes and backpacks strewn all over the entryway and lunchboxes reeking of something rotten and horribly rancid, I started rolling my eyes when people told me to enjoy it.
What’s there to enjoy? The seven seconds of snuggles before refereeing the next fighting match while simultaneously making the next meal that no one will eat? The mad dash from sun up to sunset without one single thank-you mixed in?
I’m sorry but having the exact same arguments with the little tyrants while running them to the next thing that they need to do every single day is not enjoyable. It doesn’t matter how I slice it, sweeping the floor for the tenth time in as many hours and then literally begging them to brush their teeth is not fun.
How am I supposed to enjoy it? COME ON. I rolled my eyes so hard some days that I’m surprised they aren’t permanently stuck in the back of my head.
It became monotony and survival and just trying to keep my head above the water. When my soon-to-be third grader went to kindergarten three years ago, I vividly remember looking down at the two year old clinging to my hand and being certain that I would never ever ever survive until he was old enough to go to school. I remember looking at my husband and saying “How in the hell am I going to do this for another three years? I’m so tired.”
And then those three years passed by in the blink of an eye.
I woke up on Friday morning and rolled over to put my arm over my very last baby and so very suddenly, it hit me like a ton of bricks: When the big kids get out of school for the summer in a few short days, my Mommy Days are officially over. Forever. I’ll never have another Mommy Day again.
The Mommy Days were both the best and the worst days of my entire life. They were like one giant conundrum, a contradiction of sorts.
But, now they are officially over and I’m walking into a new chapter of motherhood, a chapter where all three of the kids are at the same school on the same schedule. I no longer have a baby or a toddler or a preschooler. I just have kids that go to school on the bus and come home on the bus. I’m walking into a chapter that I wished for almost every single Friday for the past ten years and you know what the overwhelming feeling is? Sadness. Emptiness. Longing to be able to go back in time and do it all again.
“I miss him so much already.”
“The days are long but the years are short.”
The next time I’m sitting around with my girlfriends that have little tiny people sucking every last bit of life out of them, I’ll be the one they are rolling their eyes at when I tell them that it goes by too fast.
