A Blessing and a Curse

We’ll take the check whenever you get a chance I said to the waitress on Friday night. Andy and I were finishing up dinner with the kids, sitting on the outside patio at Bazbeaux, a great pizza restaurant in Broad Ripple. Despite a lengthy wait for our pizza and several comments from Max and Tyler telling us we have been waiting a really long time, everything had gone pretty well (aka: no major meltdowns). So when the waitress returned and told us Your bill has been taken care of so you’re all set – an anonymous table, who has already left, wanted to pay for your meal, we were shocked. Andy glanced across the patio and told me he's pretty sure he knew who it was. Their table was now empty, but he had noticed them sitting there earlier – it was a couple he had been talking to while he and Maisie were waiting for our table (the boys and I drove separately and had yet to arrive). Maisie had been smiling at them, and they started talking to Andy about kids and how fast it all goes. They have two sons, age 23 and 26, who were not with them that night. Their conversation didn’t last terribly long, but in a nutshell, the couple told Andy to enjoy it (life) now because our kids will be all grown up before we know it. Since we never got a chance to talk to them again or thank them, we can only speculate as to the reason for their generosity. But if I had to guess, I’d say it was partly a nostalgia-induced gesture brought on by memories of their own days with small children… and partly a sympathetic gesture to help out a young couple who is enduring the all-encompassing, exhausting days with small children.

And that right there is precisely the curse of parenthood. While you are in the thick of it (and man oh man is it all-encompassing), you find yourself dreaming about the future and wishing for easier times. One day, we’ll go out to a family dinner and actually have a real conversation rather than spend the entire time distracting antsy kids to avoid a meltdown. Or one day, we’ll have some time to relax or get things done on the weekends because the kids will be old enough to entertain themselves or play at friends’ houses or actually come on errands without whining about not being the one who got to climb in the car first. But then there are those moments when you realize just how quickly time is passing... and you force yourself to enjoy the moment.

I started this blog 3 1/2 years ago to keep everyone updated on our micro preemie’s journey in the NICU. Since then, it’s become mostly a place to post pictures and record a few thoughts and memories and milestones. I’ve heard several comments throughout the life of this blog about how the pictures make everything look so happy and fun and like everything is wonderful all the time. Now anyone with kids knows that is false and impossible, but I do admit that I haven’t posted many negative things. For one, it’s a lot easier to write about happy stories rather than figure out how to appropriately articulate I really don’t enjoy my kids today! And when I'm in the midst of dealing with a huge fight or tantrum, I don't typically rush to grab my camera. But a big thing I've realized as a parent -- you really do tend to remember the good parts, which I think that is a bit of a blessing and a curse. The first year of Max and Tyler's lives was undoubtedly one of the most challenging of our lives. But when I look back, it seemed so simple and uncomplicated. It was exhausting and consuming, yes, but they were just babies and didn't throw tantrums or fight or do much of anything to make us question our parenting skills. Now that they are preschoolers? I question my parenting every day. So it's a blessing because we have such wonderful memories from their babyhood, but it's a curse because we tend to romanticize the past, which makes the present seem that much harder.

When it comes down to it, having small kids has brought with it some really, really hard and frustrating days – days I don’t even want to remember, let alone write about. But we endure it and we make it through each day, because no matter how challenging it is some days, there are millions of moments that make it all worth it. Sometimes you need a little reminder though. So when a pay-it-forward-type moment happens like it did on Friday night, we take a step back and quit our bitching for a moment. Because we know that one day, we will be the ones sitting at a restaurant, just the two of us, while the kids are off living their own lives. And when that day comes, we will be the anonymous couple who treats some young family to dinner. And I guarantee I will look at them and think about how I miss those early days, back when things were exhausting... but simple.