Children

Children pose such a dilemma in life.  When you first have them you want to enjoy every moment, they smell so good and are so soft.  I wanted to press the pause button all the time in the first 4 months.  But then you want to make sure they are "normal" or "average", so you don't want to pause at all, you want them to reach the milestones at the right time.  That first year of their lives is such a double edged sword, you want it to slow down but you want them to eat solid food, cut their first tooth, walk, talk, etc.

I enjoyed my children's childhoods so much.  There were so many times in their youth that I wish I could have pressed the pause button to enjoy more.  The days we went to the creek and looked for tadpoles, the weeks we spent at Clear Lake camping.  The memories of them seeing things for the first time.  Watching the world open up for them is a wondrous thing.

Then the teen years come.  Those are the times that you wish for the fast forward button.  Or maybe the pause button so that you can just breath.  You always have to be on your toes and aware of who they are hanging with and where they are going.  You have to give them just enough rope to have the independence to enjoy their teen years but not enough so that they get into trouble.  You can't always parent the way you were parented because the times change and they are different people than you were as a teen.  I guess you just have to learn what works and what doesn't for any given situation.  But it would be nice to have that pause button to be able to stop and figure out what would be best for a problem facing them.

Looking back I feel that those years were probably some of my best.  I really loved being a mom to my two boys.  I know I'm still a mom but as they age they need you less and less and they aren't a part of your every moment.  Your job as a parent is to raise your children to be responsible independent adults but when they become that it's hard to transition into not always making sure they are okay.  They will always have accomplishments and also problems along the way.  Hopefully, as parents, we have given them the tools to navigate adulthood and know when to enjoy the moments they have because there isn't a pause button really.