Last August this here little blog turned 12. Can you believe that? My writing has gone in fits and bursts during those years and certainly, as my kids have gotten older and busier outside of the home, my posting frequency has dropped. Doing the writing challenge for a post-a-week in ’22/’23 kept me more focused and productive with writing, but it’s not surprising to me that I missed the blog’s birthday by, oh, almost six months because life’s been keeping us hopping from one thing to the next. So here it is, almost the end of January and I’m just now getting to my first post of the year. Whoopsiedoodles. But sporadic as it is, this place still has my heart and has accompanied me through so much of my parenting journey; that’s why I’m here to write from the other side of a parenting milestone: Tunnel Graduation.
I’ve been writing about The Tunnel for the last 10 years, mentioning it off and on primarily because we were IN IT and just continued to add to our stay there by continuing to have more kids. You can read about it here but for a quick recap it’s the name (not of my own creation) of the Parenting the Under 5s stage and it’s a doozy. Littles 5 and under require so much extra of you and then when you multiply that by having multiple children in that age and stage, well, just yikes….there’s a reason why so many parents start drinking coffee during these years! But folks, our youngest turned SIX last November and in the couple months since then, I have legit seen the beauty of what it’s like to be out of that tunnel.
For one, everyone can load and unload themselves from the car now (that’s been the case for sometime, but I still give thanks for no longer having to do gymnastics 10x a day buckling and unbuckling kids). For another, I’m almost done with all bathroom helping duties (thank goodness). And the list goes on and on in terms of independence, growth, and character displayed by all five of my kiddos. Being on this side of 5 (with all 5!) is remarkable and I find myself noticing this in part when I witness parents out in the wild who aren’t there yet.
A couple weeks ago we did an overnight at a hotel with a water play area (thanks, Santa!) and I was floored by the number of families who were there with little Littles. To be fair, the hotel had an incredible zero-entry play area, all of these kids were wearing floatation devices, and it’s was negative-40 degrees out, so what else were people gonna do that weekend? But I spent so much time trying not to stare at these parents herding these babies, toddlers, and little kids because I just couldn’t get over how many of them there were and how many kids they had. And then I realized, that’s how people looked at me for years (and let’s face it, probably still do sometimes when I’m out and about with my whole crew).
I didn’t have a conversation with any of these parents but if I had, I think I would have probably told them about The Tunnel because it’s legit and it’s hard. And so many of them were clearly in it and sometimes when you’re doing the hard stuff, it’s really helpful to know you aren’t alone. And while I doubt this next part would have helped any of them, eventually, even when you keep extending the finish line, you DO get through it and there is great joy in reaching the other side, and not just because your kids don’t need you as much. It’s also because they are more fully fledged humans with unique personalities, gifts, humor, and so much more.
Of course there are still challenges on this side and goodness knows we’re about to slide into what I’m sure some parents would refer to as the Tunnel of Teenagers, but I mean it when I say we’re in a sweet spot right now and I just want to savor that for a moment. It’s really awesome to reach this point and see how far we’ve come. I think this is also me expressing gratitude for the blog and everyone who has read along the way, because without my writing, our time in The Tunnel would have been far harder and lonelier, so thanks for being here and sticking with us as we journeyed toward the light, forever holding onto persistent hope that we’d make it through to this very moment.