OM :: The Bye-Bye

Almost every year, we travel to the southwest corner of Connecticut for a Hanukkah party at my husband’s cousin’s house. We’ve gone there in many family incarnations: our family of four; with my in-laws; me alone with the two boys. This year was me alone again with the boys.

In past years, it’s been hard work preparing and getting to this event as the only adult. The younger the boys were, the more difficult the process. And my boys were always years younger than the rest of the kids in attendance.

I had the absolute luxury this year of partying with two school-age boys that have had good manners and civility crammed into their heads. I had no cribs, no baby food, no bottles, no diapers/pull-ups, no crying to go to sleep. I wasn’t chasing them to keep them safe or chasing them to keep the house/food/presents out of harm’s way. We arrived and the boys promptly scooted down to the basement with their older cousins and I didn’t see them until Eli got hungry. I had adult conversations, was able to help in the kitchen and stood in one spot for almost 20 minutes. “Was I in the right place?” I wondered.

The reality of where I am as a mom truly hit home when I observed the two sets of parents with one toddler each. They rarely sat down. The amount of gear they brought with them was enormous. And I didn’t see the moms eat anything all night. Offers to help were politely declined.

I remembered my time in that bubble of baby/toddlerdom vividly. Was I wistful? Or melancholy for those days? Not in the least. My moment was realizing that I have said a permanent Bye-Bye to those crazy days. Not that the crazy has ended, but I’ll take kid-crazy over baby-crazy any day.

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OM is *one moment* and is a meetup designed to notice & relish a moment in everyday life. The meetup idea was created by Linda at her blog, a la mode stuff.

If you’d like to participate in OM, just click the button and you’ll be taken to Linda’s post explaining it all.