Everything Happened | vol. 236

It goes so fast and other inconvenient truths

There is a pizza joint in town wherein the existence of my family often prompts the proprietor to rhapsodize about life with young children. This is in the form of off-color remarks. “You know how that happens right?” and gesturing to the planetary mass of my full-term pregnant belly in context of my two other kids, you know the type of guy.

I am unfortunately sick in the head and don’t mind people being a little rude to me if their intentions are good because it means they are paying attention to me, and that I have license to be a little rude back.

But anyway, one time not too long ago, Al at the pizza place decided to tell me that once my kids hit school age, the time simply evaporates. You wake up and they’re out of the house. I believe he snapped his fingers. Like *that*!

Kids growing up and the time moving too fast has only recently become a preoccupation of mine. I wasn’t sad on my kids’ first birthdays. I love babies but the reason they make them with those huge Bratz doll eyeballs and Shar Pei rolls is because of how hard it is. The mental and physical exhaustion is like a low-grade gas leak that isn’t killing you but is making you very sluggish and a little dumb. Even when I got to have my cheeky third baby, I wasn’t sad about all the “lasts.” I had kind of OD’d on pregnancy and babies, the effect of smoking an entire pack of cigarettes in a sitting. I really had my chance! When I first heard that devastating aphorism that one day you pick your child up for the last time? I was like damn that sucks, but Desi will top out at, what? 200 lbs? I can train! Underestimate my fireman’s carry AT YOUR PERIL.

There was a Pinterest meme about how you only get 18 summers with your kids, and without getting into the inherent flaws there (do you execute them by firing squad the summer they graduate high school? I’m confused), I always felt like…..umm actually 18 is a lot. I wouldn’t want my 25-year-old expecting to pal around with me all summer. I don’t want my kid, grown or otherwise, to be obsessed with me. Fan culture freaks me out. Nick is obsessed with me and that’s enough.

When I had my first baby, people liked to say to me that the days are long but the years are short. Desi woke every three hours for nine months, so I was like……hm idk guys, seems like the days are long and also the nights are long and the year is pretty fucking long, too!! And maybe it was because my pregnancies with the girls were way more taxing than my first, but when people suggested pregnancy when you have other kids already just fliiiiies by, I was like, huh? Are we using the same metrics here? Can we get aligned on terminology? Because having to be pregnant all day with your veins hot and pulsing and then having to get 1+ jabronis to bed and do it all over again the next day…..can’t say the experience felt fleeting.

Ok, but no matter how many clichés I manage to dismantle, the time going too fast thing has come to be painfully true. Desi turns 9 in August and because he started kindergarten at barely five, he will graduate high school at 17. If he does the college thing, he might turn 18 having already moved out! His time at home with us might be half over then, at age 9. I confess that “18 summers” feels less expansive when I consider that the summers where he’ll want to be around me at all…..we might be down to two or three left.

Eight-almost-nine is still little—I know that—but I have been grappling with how startlingly big it also is. I note which t-shirts of his get pushed to the back of the drawer, and they’re the cuter ones. “Good Vibes Only” with peace signs on it, a gift from my mom. A sloth wearing sunglasses while surfing, a former favorite. Yet I have winter coats that I wear infrequently enough that I can still find his matchbox cars stashed in the pockets.

Polly needed new pajamas and a Hanna Andersson sales promotion got me—I love their short john pajama sets for summer and their products hold up so well. Now that my kids have a baby cousin, I can justify almost any clothing purchase with the mental note that it can be passed down to Sophi. This snake print was too good, so I got a set for Polly and then Jane, too.

I thought about getting a pair for Desi—after all, they could be passed down to both Jane and Polly, and probably Sophi, once he outgrew them. And I love my kids in matching jammies. But I didn’t. Because Hanna is expensive and if he didn’t like them, I’d never summon the administrative competence to complete the return. (Why didn’t you ask him if he liked them? Well, because I was at work when the compulsion to purchase came over me and I couldn’t wait.)

The print was too adorable, I thought. He rejects such things now. He won’t want to wear short shorts to bed in this sweetie-pie print and he definitely won’t want to match his baby sisters. I was clear-headed in this choice. He is allowed to grow up! He is allowed to shift his preferences. I try to keep the exquisite agony of watching baby things fall away to myself. He doesn’t need to worry about that and he definitely doesn’t need to apologize for it.

The pajamas arrived and the girls delighted in them. And of course Desi also loved them, and was surprised I didn’t include him in the order. “I just love snakes,” he said by way of explanation, because he is only 8 years old.

He is also allowed to take his time growing up, of course, whatever that means. I will be over here continuing to guess which identity is at the forefront day to day—tween ascending or baby of mine.

I will not link you to the Youtube video of “Baby Mine” because we all have things we need to get done today and seeing Dumbo’s mom in chains will surely interfere

I ordered him the pajamas, obviously.

Ok cool!

When they arrived, he put them on right away and then dabbed.

yr mate,
Evie
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