“I wish someone had told me,” I said to my husband over lunch last week. “Not that I would have been able to hear it,” I admitted before continuing, “I had no idea that someday our kids would start doing all the things I’ve told them over and over. It’s like that saying, ‘An overnight success ten years in the making.’”
“Yes,” my husband, Michael, agreed. “I’ve noticed Kayt has been more independent and responsible. She told me the other day she wants to be more clean and proper when she eats.”
I laughed. It’s a well known fact in our family that Kayt’s place at the at the table (including the floor underneath) can be identified by the generous sprinkling and smearing of food after every meal.
I stood by the microwave heating my second serving of leftovers. “She keeps asking me if her face is clean, every time we go somewhere. She used to not care at all. And she seems more mature, calmer, kind of grown up. It’s so weird. It feels like it happened all of a sudden.”
It has been two months since our older daughter Kayt turned ten, and in many ways it seems she aged three years at once. I guess this makes up for the first year of her life, which felt like three. Lately she disappears to read a book for an hour, doesn’t come looking for me first thing in the morning, and takes on random projects like cleaning her drawer in the bathroom. She asked to decorate the mantle for Christmas, so I brought the bin of Christmas knick-knacks and (mostly) left her to it. She started with layers of wide holiday-colored cloth ribbon. Next she arranged snow globes toward one end, set up the nativity in the middle, and created a scene with a nutcracker pulling a Christmas tree on a sled at the other end. Then she added a string of tiny lights through it all. I’m prone to tweak things after my kids do them—straighten this, move that (I know, I know. I’m working on being less controlling). But I looked at that beautiful Christmassy spread and thought it turned out better than when I do it. Oh, and don’t forget she dusted the mantle before she started decorating (gasp).
After a decade of repeating myself until I lost two or three levels of sanity, this truly feels like a miracle. I wonder if my tone of voice would have been kinder for the past ten years if I had believed someday my kids would actually clear their dishes, close the back door, clean up after themselves, and respond with action when I say, “Please hang up your wet towel. It’s not good to leave it on the wood floor.”
Along with relief, joy, and pride, I feel a twinge of sadness. For too long Kayt’s dependance was so heavy on me all I wanted was to be alone—for as long as possible. Now that it has begun to melt away, I miss it. I feel like a crazy person, wishing for the very thing I found so loathsome. I find solace knowing that every generation before me has felt these same feelings.
I wonder what connection looks like now. We’ve connected over trimming fingernails and combing hair, reading story books and preparing snacks—and in the younger years, dressing and eating, zipping coats and tying shoes. When she doesn’t need me to process every emotion and supervise every activity, what will we do together? Have I been a safe enough person that she will continue to come to me even when she doesn’t have to?
If anything, parenting has taught me that life happens in seasons, and seasons change. I’ll probably get a good dose of clingyness from Kayt when I least want it, and I’m confident we have ahead of us many challenges to navigate together. Teenage years will come and I will be surprised by how they differ from my expectations, just as I have been surprised at every other stage. So for now I enjoy quieter days, smile when I notice the clean kitchen counter after Kayt baked scones, and shed a tear when I miss the terrifying blessing of being needed all the time.
My Favorite Subject 