This story was passed on via the group (FCC : Families with children from China) that I I belong to. It is a story worth reading if you are a parent. I definately relate to the author since my oldest is going to be going off to college in one year. We are currently looking at schools, making appointments to visit campuses, taking SAT's attending proms and the d word .... driving. It did go very quickly. My little guy just turned 7, and I can't believe it. Where does the time go...The author reminds us to live in the moment. I try so hard to do this, but you all know life gets in the way, and we are running from one event to another, making sure dinner is made, homework done, yard work done etc etc.... Especially with this whole adoption process, it is so easy to get caught up in the tomorrows, but then my todays will be all gone... SOOOO I will try to live in the today, savor each day with my children now, remember one beautiful thing about each of them, even as I get mad at them for some silly thing...
All My Babies Are Gone Now
> By Anna Quindlen, Newsweek Columnist and Author
>
> All my babies are gone now. I say this not in sorrow, but in
disbelief.
> I take great satisfaction in what I have today: three almost-
adults,
> two
> taller than I am, one closing in fast. Three people who read the
same
> books I do and have learned not to be afraid of disagreeing with me
in
> their opinion of them, who sometimes tell vulgar jokes that make me
> laugh until I choke and cry, who need razor blades and shower gel
and
> privacy, who want to keep their doors closed more than I like. Who,
> miraculously, go to the bathroom, zip up their jackets and move
food
> from plate to mouth all by themselves. Like the trick soap I bought
> for
> the bathroom with a rubber ducky at its center, the baby is buried
deep
> within each, barely discernible except through the unreliable haze
of
> the past.
>
> Everything in all the books I once pored over is finished for me
now.
> Penelope Leach, T. Berry Brazelton, Dr. Spock. The ones on sibling
> rivalry and sleeping through the night and early-childhood
education --
> all grown obsolete. Along with Goodnight Moon and Where the Wild
Things
> Are, they are battered, spotted, well used. But I suspect that if
you
> flipped the pages dust would rise like memories. What those books
> taught
> me, finally, and what the women on the playground taught me, and
the
> well-meaning relations -- what they taught me, was that they
couldn't
> really teach me very much at all.
>
> Raising children is presented at first as a true-false test, then
> becomes multiple choice, until finally, far along, you realize that
it
> is an endless essay. No one knows anything. One child responds well
to
> positive reinforcement, another can be managed only with a stern
voice
> and a timeout. One child is toilet trained at 3, his sibling at 2.
>
> When my first child was born, parents were told to put baby to bed
on
> his belly so that he would not choke on his own spit-up. By the
time my
> last arrived, babies were put down on their backs because of
research
> on sudden infant death syndrome. To a new parent this ever-shifting
> certainty is terrifying, and then soothing. Eventually you must
learn
> to trust yourself. Eventually the research will follow. I remember
15
> years ago poring over one of Dr. Brazelton's wonderful books on
child
> development, in which he describes three different sorts of
infants:
> average, quiet, and active. I was looking for a sub-quiet codicil
for
> an
> 18-month old who did not walk. Was there something wrong with his
fat
> little legs? Was there something wrong with his tiny little mind?
Was
> he
> developmentally delayed, physically challenged? Was I insane? Last
year
> he went to China. Next year he goes to college. He can talk just
fine.
> He can walk, too.
>
> Every part of raising children is humbling. Believe me, mistakes
were
> made. They have all been enshrined in the "Remember-When-Mom-Did"
Hall
> of Fame. The outbursts, the temper tantrums, the bad language --
mine,
> not theirs. The times the baby fell off the bed. The times I
arrived
> late for preschool pickup. The nightmare sleepover. The horrible
> summer
> camp. The day when the youngest came barreling out of the classroom
> with
> a 98 on her geography test, and I responded, "What did you get
wrong?"
> (She insisted I include that here.) The time I ordered food at the
> McDonald's drive-through speaker and then drove away without
picking
> it
> up from the window. (They all insisted I include that.) I did not
allow
> them to watch the Simpsons for the first two seasons. What was I
> thinking?
>
> But the biggest mistake I made is the one that most of us make
while
> doing this. I did not live in the moment enough. This is
particularly
> clear now that the moment is gone, captured only in photographs.
There
> is one picture of the three of them, sitting in the grass on a
quilt
> in
> the shadow of the swing set on a summer day, ages 6, 4 and 1. And I
> wish I could remember what we ate, and what we talked about, and
how
> they sounded, and how they looked when they slept that night.
>
> I wish I had not been in such a hurry to get on to the next thing:
> dinner, bath, book, bed. I wish I had treasured the doing a little
more
> and the getting it done a little less.
>
> Even today I'm not sure what worked and what didn't, what was me
and
> what was simply life. When they were very small, I suppose I
thought
> someday they would become who they were because of what I'd done.
Now I
> suspect they simply grew into their true selves because they
demanded
> in
> a thousand ways that I back off and let them be. The books said to
be
> relaxed and I was often tense, matter-of-fact and I was sometimes
over
> the top. And look how it all turned out. I wound up with the three
> people I like best in the world, who have done more than anyone to
> excavate my essential humanity. That's what the books never told
me. I
> was bound and determined to learn from the experts. It just took me
a
> while to figure out who the experts were.
