My youngest has just turned five. Yes five. I can no longer say I’m the mum of toddlers or smallies. At five and seven my children are now in what I consider ‘the sweet spot.’ Not in their pre-teen era and mercifully out of the demanding baby and toddler stage, it’s like I’ve reached an eerie calm, of sorts.
It's the hallowed period I've heard other parents talk about with a sense of reverence, but never imagined I'd actually get to. And I’m loving it.
My two boys are still small enough to be interested in being with me, they still believe in the tooth fairy, the Santa Claus list is being written as we speak and yet they have a level of self sufficiency that makes things ebb and flow in a way I would have imagined impossible a couple of years ago, when I was in the trenches.
It almost feels like it’s my reward for getting through the baby and toddler phase, which for anyone who’s been through it will remember is like a Navy Seal endurance test. I did it during covid, with Luke turning 5 months just around the time the schools and society shut down. I still get shivers thinking about it.
Mums can be under huge pressure these days to have babies in quick succession. Be it due to waiting that bit longer to start a family, financial reasons or simply wanting to have children of similar ages, many of us are finding ourselves with more than one child in the very small stage. You can have a newborn and one who’s potty training and you can feel like you’re out of synch getting one to the next milestone, while starting from scratch all over again on your next.
And let’s not beat around the bush. It is hard. Sometimes so hard, I look back and wonder how the hell I did it all?
I can distinctly remember people telling me I should stop and enjoy the moment when the children were really small. But when you’re covered in baby vomit while your toddler does the fandango on the floor over the wrong colour sippy cup and you haven’t slept in three days, it’s hard to stop and smell the roses.
Fast forward to today and being in the sweet spot is a very nice place to be, so much so, I’m almost afraid to say it out loud, lest I jinx it. However, these days I can stop and appreciate how lovely it is, the adventures we go on, the silly innocent giggles we have, the excitement over the little things and the many little boy hugs I adore.
To be brutally honest, it’s the first time I’ve really been able to breathe and fully enjoy motherhood.
Now look, don’t get me wrong, it’s not utopia here. They still fight like a pair of cats and I’m an almost constant referee. I’m also always either answering questions on things I’ve no idea about as if I’m in the speed round of Mastermind or expected to drop everything and look while they do handstands or jump off the couch headfirst.
I’m often remined of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, when Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchet's characters are aging in different directions, but finally meet in the middle for a short time. I feel like that’s where I’m at now. But I’m acutely aware than in a very short space of time, my eldest will enter the pre-teen era, and things will shift dramatically and we’ll be out of synch again and no longer in our sweet spot.
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