You Will Never Sleep Again
I know it hurts you to read it. It hurt me to write it. I don't enjoy taking away your hope. You may not even believe me but you need to trust me on this—I wouldn't lie to you. Not like all those mothers who lied to me.
You WILL sleep through the night again because eventually, all children do. But it will never be on a consistent basis.
Because if it’s not waking up to be fed, it’s waking up because they're teething, or because they had a nightmare, or they’re sick, or heard a noise, or they're too hot, too cold, too sweaty, too chilly, the light is on and it's bothering them, the light is off and they're scared, their blankets came off, they have too many blankets, they fell out of bed, their stuffed animal is missing...or any of the other hundred million different reasons that will disrupt their sleep.
So get used to it. Enjoy the sleep when you can get it but also resign yourself to the fact that you will never again sleep like you slept pre-children.
Children Are Liars
One day your children may come to you and beg for a hamster. They will tell you how they saved their money because this is the only thing in the world they want. They will never ask you for anything else ever again if you let them get this adoring hamster. They’ll feed it and give it water and clean the cage, just please please please let them get a hamster.
They’re lying. Don’t do it.
Wanna See Something Freaky?
If your children ask you “Do you want to see something freaky?” no matter how much every instinct in your body screams "No!" you really need to go see the freaky thing.
In completely unrelated news, cat hair grows back faster than you’d think.
Shopping
Love 'em or hate 'em, you will spend an inordinate amount of time in big box stores.
You Will Never Stop Worrying
There are books for every age and stage that answer every question and tackle every topic imaginable but no matter how many answers you get, you will always worry. Old worries don't go away, they are simply traded in for new worries. For two years you worried because your child wouldn't sleep through the night and now he does. This leaves room for you to worry about how long your toddler can live off a diet of only beige food. It's like upgrading your leased car, but with grey hair.
Gone are the summers of my childhood, a time when summers were about playing with friends for hours on end……..unsupervised. My parents didn’t hover over us like stealth helicopters swooping in when fights broke out or dangerous activities like hanging upside down on the monkey bars or riding our banana bikes with no hands occurred.
There were no structured activities, no summer camps, no video games, no handheld devices of any kind. My parents sent us out to play and we were to come home when it was dinnertime, after dinner, when the streetlights came on. If a fight broke out among our group of friends, we were left to figure out how to fix it or risk being ostracized for the rest of the summer. If one of us got hurt, the rest banded together to help us hobble home for the age-old remedy of mecurichrome, bandaids and a Freezie. Nine times out of ten we were off and running again within minutes.
I’m not saying we shouldn’t supervise our children and there are definitely things that have changed for the better.
Like pointed metal lawn darts.
I have great memories of playing lawn darts with my family in our back yard. My sister and I would pair up with one of our parents and stand behind the yellow hoops watching as the pointed metal projectiles came sailing across the yard towards us, sometimes missing us by mere inches while we looked on and laughed. My mom, all long legs and blonde hair, would help us throw, my dad with his straw cowboy hat perched upon his head, a beer in one hand and red lawn dart in the other, would occasionally take a break to see if the charcoal on our bbq had finally heated to the point where it would cook our full fat hamburgers. More often than not, it needed more lighter fluid resulting in a burst of flames and singed eyebrows.
In retrospect, I wonder what the hell they were thinking letting us stand three inches behind the hoops watching javelins speed through the air towards our bodies like we had a target painted on our chest. So it’s a good thing that metal lawn darts have been banned and now come with a round, weighted bottom. All the fun minus the element of death.
But I also wonder what our kids are missing out on now that free time needs to be penciled in after homework and structured activities and playing unsupervised is almost unheard of. How will they learn to resolve conflict if parents are swooping in to resolve it for them? How will the learn independence when parents are there to watch over their every move and drive them wherever they need to go?
While it might not have been the best decision to let children run free for ten hours a day not knowing where they were, perhaps, now, the pendulum has swung too far in the other direction. Somewhere in between there has to be a happy medium where we can ensure, to some degree, our kids are safe and then it's up to us to let them go be kids, unstructured and free where they can run and play without toys or video games, without having to be the best, without worrying that they are falling behind—playing with their friends and figuring things out on their own—allowing them to make mistakes.
And maybe one day they too will grow up, look back on their childhood and think "What the hell were my parents thinking?" And maybe, like me, it will be with a smile on their face.
In the words of Dory from Nemo, "Well, you can't never let anything happen to him. Then nothing would ever happen to him. Not much fun for little Harpo."
I make no bones about the fact that I am completely against loot bags filled with crap but I'm also against how birthday parties have become a competitive sport. I got caught up in the birthday party mayhem when my boys were younger—movie parties, parties at indoor playgrounds, face painters—all for little kids who could easily be entertained with a box.
After three years of spending more money on my children's birthday parties than my parents spent on all of my childhood birthdays combined, I put an end to it and started hosting birthday parties at home. We filled the two hours with simple games, crafts, food and opening presents.
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But this still wasn't ideal. The cost of the parties was still adding up and because the parents of the kids from school didn't really know my boys, they ended up with a bunch of toys they never played with. So three years ago we gave our boys a choice—a birthday party at home or an adventure day with the family. They could choose what we would do for the day and we would stay overnight in a hotel of their choice.
My older son was the first to hop on the bandwagon. We took the Go-Train downtown, spent the day at the ROM and the night at a hotel where we swam and played. The following year we went to Casa Loma. This past year I got a great deal for Great Wolf Lodge and we had two fun-filled, waterlogged days.
Our younger son was still little and preferred the birthday party with his friends so that's what we did for him. But after Great Wolf Lodge he wanted in on the family adventure experience so this past birthday that's where he chose to go.
After adding up the cost of food, craft items, birthday party decorations and miscellaneous items, the cost of doing our family adventure is quite comparable to having a two-hour birthday party at home.
If this is something you want to do with your own family, here are a few hints to keep the costs down:
You can get great deals on hotels if you put in a little time and effort (weekdays are typically cheaper than weekends). Helpful Hint: Get your kids to make their choice a few months in advance so you can get the best deal possible.
When our older son requested a stay at a more expensive hotel we told him we could but he would have to forgo a day adventure because of the room price (he stuck with having an adventure day).
The cost of eating out can add up. We bring breakfast/lunch/snacks and eat dinner out.
We have now had six birthdays where instead of spending money on a party that's over in the blink of an eye we've spent time together as a family. This past Christmas, instead of exchannging gifts we all went indoor sky-diving.
And the memories we've made? Well....those are priceless.
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