Realizations and Epiphanies on Successful Childrearing

As I was putting laundry away this morning, it hit me. And I have to share some insights with those of you still exhausted from the effort of raising the kids.

The day is coming when you will put the last load of laundry away and not discover that the chute or hamper is already full before the last sock-drawer is closed.

There will come a day when the sink will not magically refill with dirty dishes as soon as the last piece of cuttlery slides into the storage block.

Babies survive because they are cute. Teenagers survive because they are as big as we are, they are volatile, and unpredictable. Besides, in many families they outnumber us. From the ages of 6-12, they survive because they can run faster than we can. Especially the boys.

All kids promise to take care of their pets. None do. Now I will confess. When I was eight, I threw an on-going fit until I got a pony. I walked her and fed her and watered her and brushed her and rode her and loved her. Until the weather got cold. Eventually I ventured back out to the barn, only to discover that my pony had been sold two weeks before I knew she was gone.

Some day, you will once again be able to afford groceries. Not only that, but some day soon, you will never have to eat another fish stick, another serving of Kraft Mac & Cheese, another Pop-Tart, another bowl of instant oatmeal, another Flapstick, or blue jello.

Some day - I promise this day is coming - you will never again tear through the house ransacking your own abode like the DEA looking for a stash of heroin, because a kid already buckled into the minivan says; as you back out of the driveway; "I forgot my backpack!"

The day is coming when you will not find a weeks worth of dried food and dirty dishes under the beds when you change the sheets. You will never again find twenty towels shoved into the back of a closet, the lids to your Servin' Savers will stop disappearing, and going out to dinner on a Saturday night will no longer mean the Rainforest Cafe or Chuckee Cheese. Some day, you won't have to buy new sneakers every 4-8 weeks.

Legos will no longer stalk your bare feet in the middle of the night - while you are making your way to the room of a crying child who is going to puke on you as soon as you pick him or her up.

Some day a Harry Potter or a Lemony Snickett will come down the pike and you will be blissfully unaware of who that even is.

In a few years, everyone who leaves your home at 0230 will exit the front door or the garage, not a second-story window. About that time, you will realize that it has been a couple of years since you opened a cell-phone bill and discovered that a single call came in at $18.00 - and would have been free if it had been dialed at 9:01 pm instead of 8:59.

So enjoy them now. If you are able to lighten up, take all the silliness with a grain of salt, not get too excited about the stuff that you can't control now, you will still enjoy them when they are older.

But it is different when they are older. Little ones still have the wonder of discovery, and the thrill of new accomplishment. Look through their new eyes as long as you can. They grow up to be bitch-slapped by reality all too soon as it is.