The colic, the diapers and the sleepless nights are finite.  Eventually they all go away, are resolved.  Sometimes they are replaced by other things that are equally problematic and annoying, but by now you are beginning to see the trend and are slowly gathering more skills as each “phase” of childhood comes and goes.  What didn’t come and go for me was the weight of being so utterly responsible for two helpless human beings.  Yes, they are eventually potty trained and tie their own shoes and do their own homework (ok, maybe I help a little).  Mine even walk home from school on their own.  But what they need from me doesn’t diminish.  It just shifts.  In fact, as I look out the diner window this morning and see a dad pushing his toddler in a pink plastic kiddie car across Broadway at 7:30 on a Saturday morning, I think those years were somehow easier.  Now I know all of you sleep-deprived parents with tiny children would like to come at me with a sharp object right now, but it’s true.  The endless things that needed to be done when they were tiny seemed straight ahead, attainable – dirty diapers – change it, baby crying – feed her, then cuddle – wakes up in the middle of the night…..ok, that one can definitely be a bit tortuous.  But as my children grow, they need guidance, explanations, someone to commiserate with, to vent to, good listeners who are available any time of the day or night.  These are not things I can check off a list so easily nor are they usually things I can “fix”.

My twins, Jack and Olivia have come with me every time I have voted, from the beginning of their lives when they were in their double stroller which wouldn’t fit in the polling booth necessitating an election volunteer to watch them as they slept, all the way to this last election when Jack stood next to me, paper ballot in hand, reading each line and penciling in the dot next to the candidate we picked.  We went from buying cupcakes from our school’s election day bake sales to discussing President Obama’s immigration policy versus Romney’s.  Moral issues, ethics, right and wrong – much headier stuff.  Baby’s First Years seems light reading compared to my present reading – The Drama Years – Your Daughter and Middle School and Raising Cain: Protecting the Emotional Life of Boys.  Much scarier reading.  The older they get, the more I realize that every step of the way of being a mother is asking more of me, not less.  I’m waiting for someone to write a book titled Raising Parents: How to Preserve the Sanity of Parents and Still Enjoying Parenting.  I’d volunteer to write it myself, except I don’t have enough experience yet.  I’m still in the midst of it, or rather at the beginning of it.  The well of emotions my daughter and son are feeling at this age are new to me.  Colic seemed easy compared to this.  Although for both I needed to just ride it out, give a hug, try to stay calm and realize it was something they were going to experience that I could do little about other than comfort.  After years of “doing” things to “fix” things, a boo-boo, a broken toy, this is hard.  As they get older, I’m beginning to see that listening has become the “doing” something for my tweens.  It’s a new phase of parenting, more new things to figure out, just like the day they came home from the hospital almost 12 years ago.