Life with Older Kids and Funny Quips Around Our House

Our family is in such a different season than we were just a few short years ago.  We’re now popping out babies like most people do in their twenties.  But it’s not just that we’re forty instead of twenty five, we’ve also got big kids in the house.  And by big, I mean BIG.  For real.  Who knew that boys barely hit their teens before they’re taller than their mom and their feet are time and a half as big?

I hardly know where I fit in with other moms.  When I hang out with the moms who have kids my girls’ ages, they tend to be a decade plus younger than me and they haven’t even remotely thought of the fact that one of these days they’re going to wake up and find themselves buying shaving cream for their KID.  Yet this year, an enormous amount of mom friends my age posted facebook statuses in August lamenting the fact that their baby went off to first grade.  My Braxton Hicks consumed self can’t even imagine.

We’re just over here running one stretched out life and most of the time it’s crazy and beautiful simultaneously.

(I keep saying it feels as though I’ve lost my brain, and sure enough one day it showed up in the frig!)

As a young mom, it felt as though so many people talked about “those teenage years” as though they were a thing to be dreaded.  I was pretty sure I wouldn’t, and oh my goodness, I feel as though I finally hit my sweet spot in motherhood.  It’s sooooo much fun having older kids!  The little ones are adorable and sweet and precious (except for the temper tantrums and even then, sometimes they’re funny), but there’s something about older kids that leaves my insides going, yes, this comes naturally.

They are capable, intelligent, ambitious, and fun!  I think what surprised me most was how much they make me laugh!  Both boys are witty and punny, and Adam can pull out some sarcasm among the typical “boy humor” that goes with the territory.  The other night I was standing in the kitchen breathing through a harder than normal contraction.  Liam glanced up from where he was picking cilantro leaves off the stems and took it all in when he saw my pursed lips.  “Don’t worry, Mom, I can’t whistle either.”  Ten minutes later I was swaying at the kitchen counter and moaning (man, those things get earlier and earlier and more and more annoying the more babies you have.  David says I have eternal labors.  They go on for fifteen weeks.) next to Adam who was washing lettuce.  “Making up a new song?” he said dryly.  And then he put squeezing contractions lyrics to a simple ditty.  For real.  I laughed so hard at both of them, but thank goodness, they aren’t my labor coaches!

They have picked up so much slack around here during this pregnancy it’s unbelievable.  Sometimes I hate that I am so incapable and they have to do so much; especially because it’s not the line of work they’d choose.  But most of the time, I am in awe at the way they are naturally learning so many incredible life skills.  Adam cooks breakfast 98% of the time and is getting better at foods for dinner all the time.  Liam is an absolute pro with the girls when it comes to getting them to eat their food (seeeeeeeerrrrrrrriously, how do people birth kids who sit down at the table and eat their food at mealtime?  Haven’t had one of those since Adam.) or playing with them until they’re nearly oozing happiness.  And both of them can help knock out some cleaning and laundry like nobody’s business.  Even aside from the fact that they should probably earn a school credit in home ec and pregnancy knowledge, they’re learning so many general life skills.  How to play with kids who are much younger.  How to pull your weight in a group and work for the general good of the group instead of only for your own needs.  How to work hard and with a good attitude even when it’s not a job you like doing.  What it’s really like to grow a baby.  They are so respectful and kind of my limitations and sometimes I flash forward far ahead to the day thirty-seven blinks from now when they might get to become dads themselves and how much they will already know and understand.

The girls adore them.  Zara has Adam somewhere on hero status and the other day when he went out for lunch you would have thought he’d been gone for two months when he walked back in the door.  Last Saturday I looked out the window at Liam holding Bella’s hand as they walked down the driveway.  Her little pink boots flashed next to his big shoes and my eyes fogged over.  She is so feisty and independent that holding his hand could only mean one thing.  She felt so loved and needed by him.

Having big kids in the house means teaching them how to shave and buying so many groceries you literally cannot even fathom.  It means conversations about jobs and driving and insurance and facing your fears.  It means music lessons and baseball and learning how big your body is and how it can break a rocking chair when you hit it with your foot as you jump over it.  It means watching them earn money and save it for years.  Finally the day comes when they have enough cash and you listen and watch as they research options online, talk to other people for advice, and then make a well thought through decision and watch their dreams come true.  I was so proud of them I almost cried.  They’re learning about investment, about how to pursue their dreams, and about the importance of community.

Don’t rush the sweetness of those let them be little days.  But, oh sweet mama, don’t dread the grown up days.

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