It’s easier to be a mom when there are more kids around, rather than just little kids. Here’s why.
When I had little kids people would tell me, “Little kids, little problems, big kids, big problems.”
Now I have little kids and big kids and I can honestly say they were right. But what they didn’t say was that it was much easier to be a mom of little kids when there are also older kids.
I don’t anymore have days that I say, “I can’t take this!” How many hours can you sit and play with babies, sing head and shoulders, or listen to Uncle Moishy?
I started bathtime at 5 pm. Anything to make the afternoon pass faster.
So what’s different today?
I have big ones, a little one, and in between kids.
I have to cook way, way more. The house gets messier. Big kids talk and talk and talk. They have stories about school and friends and opinions on life. You have to deal with friends issues, teachers complaints, reading problems, helping them overcome rejection, and help them with homework on topics I never learned.
And still, the little kids need everything that the big kids needed when they were little. We still sing head and shoulders, there are just as many diapers, and I’m still mashing avocado so the baby can throw it across the clean floor. But I don’t cry anymore when that happens.
What changed?
“Ma, I love supper, thanks so much.”
“You’re the greatest for bringing me to my friend’s house…”
Just seeing them growing up into a mentch brings such joy.
And the third, and most important reason why it’s easier, is that I learned not to sweat the small stuff. I changed my attitude. Once, when the baby threw her food across the floor, I may have taken it a little personal. It was MY clean floor. Why???
Now I laugh and think how advanced this little one is (she’s obviously brilliant) and wipe it up as fast as I can. I know this throwing stage never lasts longer than 3 months and I can live with that knowledge.
I don’t care if a 5-year-old yells in the pizza shop, “I want slush!!!” on tone 10 one hundred times in a row (true story, no exaggeration, it happened today). It used to bother me so much. I would come home from the pizza shop and tell my husband that our 5-year-old needs some major punishment, how embarrassed I was, and how I can’t take the kids to the pizza shop.
I thought it was a failure if these things happened. Today, when we came home from the pizza store, and he didn’t receive the slush, I considered a victory. My long term goal was to teach him that when I say no, I mean no. So, today was a success.
Today, I understand long term goals. The little things don’t matter as much.
If someone would have told this to me when I was younger, would I have listened? Would I have understood the long term goals? That tantrums are a stage, that waking up during the night is a stage, that all that passes. I’m not sure. But maybe by sharing this, some of you will and it will make those early years, that may seem difficult, a little sweeter.
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