Real life - One day a year

I’ve had a few conversations with friends and colleagues lately about the different stages of parenthood that we are all up to at the moment and the old saying - ‘the days are long, but the years are short’.

Some are right in the thick of the sleepless nights and the toddler tantrums. Others are dealing with fussy eaters and toileting issues. A few are managing raging sibling battles multiple times a day and are trying to navigate the dramas of how they integrate screens into their lives without them taking over! [us] Others are on the cusp of the tween stage, where puberty is on the door step and those crazy emotional rollercoasters of toddlerhood seem to be rearing their challenging heads again [also us!]… and others are right in the thick of the full blown teenage years.

Some stages can be so hard going - for both parents and kids.

No matter how things are feeling in parenting-land, I have an affirmation-of-sorts that I say to myself to remind me to I appreciate this moment in time of who my boys are - because it is so easy to forget the good, the bad, the immensely frustrating, the ordinary and the magical.

I would give anything to have just one day with them a year ago, and a year before that, and a year before that… Just one day.

Because if I could go back to an ordinary day when my now 11 year old was 2, and listen to his voice, and watch his facial expressions and have conversations about diggers and the colours of people’s cars, and cuddle him…

Or when my now 8 year old was 4, and listen to him waking up in the morning and chatting to himself for half an hour before getting out of bed, and talking about Paw Patrol 24/7 and pronouncing “Rider” with an American accent, and being able to hold his little hand when we went to the shops and reading his favourite story and snuggling at bedtime…

I think my heart would burst. Literally, burst!

These are the years. The days are long, but the years are short.

S. x

Now, excuse me, I’m off to go and detach Monkey and The Bear from screens and make myself a coffee. x