Adventures at the Orange Door Inn: Letting Go of the Little Years

I have been waiting for this for 11 years—the start of the academic year in which all three kids are finally on one schedule, at one school. Up until this point, it has been diapers and snotty noses and up-all-nights and potty accidents and Thomas the Train. But I have made it, I have arrived. And from 8:20 in the morning to 2:40 in the afternoon, I am a FREE WOMAN! I have goals and aspirations and a whole house and 11 years’ worth of clutter to clean out and organize. I joined a new gym. I registered for a writing class at our community college. I’m starting to think about and make plans for my career again. This moment is a big deal.

And yet, on the night before the first day of school, when Wayne asked how I was feeling, I realized that I wasn’t as excited as I thought I’d be. No doubt, this marks a huge milestone. I know I’m gaining the much-longed-for freedom that moms with babies still tethered to their hips are giving me the stink-eye for, but it also means I’ve officially moved on to the next stage of parenting. It means no more babies, no more sticky toddlers—just sticky big kids, who aren’t as endearing. With all my children now school-aged, I’ve been purging baby books and toddler toys, and even gave away Caedmon’s once-beloved train set. (Goodbye, Thomas…)

In fact, I knew I was out of the baby stage of parenting when, visiting a friend, her poopy baby toddled towards me, and I tensed and held my breath. Previously, when we were both in the trenches together and elbow-deep in all kinds of bodily fluids, what was a poopy diaper between us? Now, though, her baby was Godzilla lurching towards me. And I knew definitively that I was no longer in the club.

For the first time, my children—ages 11, 8, and 6—regularly walk to and from school all on their own. When they wake in the mornings, they simply head downstairs and read their books, and with Caedmon's help, they can even prepare their own simple breakfasts. Rare is the night we find them in our bed now, but when we do, we readily split the sea to enclose them in the protection they still come to us for, and I no longer mind the fist in the face, the starfish body positioning, the narrow strip of mattress that's now more than enough for me. Their growing independence is something I wholly celebrate, but how the heart aches just a little over my newfound freedom. Though I’d been looking forward to this stage for 11 years, 11 years is still a significant amount of time to be caring for and loving on tiny humans, and it’s a jolt to the system to move on.

I realize now that I had probably been anticipating this transition all summer. It explains why I’ve been so uncharacteristically insular, even jealous of our time as a family, with our kids. Normally the social butterfly, I subconsciously kept play dates to a minimum. Our summer calendar remained free of camps and classes, which was really a consequence of poor planning and procrastination on my part (those registration deadlines seem to always sneak up during the busiest times!), but one I later regarded as a blessing.

At the last minute, I even dis-enrolled our kids from their school’s summer program, foregoing the three hours each morning I would have had to myself, and instead, created activities that we could do together: writing projects, swim lessons, language instruction. (Showing them Peppa Pig in Cantonese counts as language instruction, right?) It was our happy little homeschool that I never knew I desired. I felt an overwhelming need to soak in as much concentrated time with my kids as possible, a desperation to hold on to the last dredges of their littleness, especially as the new school year loomed.

One day while on summer vacation in Portugal, while we were relaxing at the apartment and the kids were playing in the next room, a memory popped up on Wayne’s phone, and we settled in to watch this video montage of our children from five to six years ago, of a period that spanned the first couple years of Ry's life, when the kids were between the growing ages of 0 to 6: Caedmon, wedged alongside newborn Ry on his playmat, caught in a moment of curiosity, love, and awe for his new baby brother; Addie and Ry in their favorite dragon suits, beaming at the camera while Ry sports an impressive shiner on his left eye, a souvenir from one of his usual antics; Addie caught emerging from my closet, wearing at least 11 of my shirts that hung down to her feet, all layered colorfully, like a maypole ready for a summer festival.

And then I started sobbing. “We don’t have any babies anymore…” is all I could eke out. Parenthood is lovely. And it’s devastating. And it makes us feel in ridiculous ways, so that even when you’re in the middle of Lisbon, on the most idyllic of family vacations, surrounded by charming, colorfully tiled buildings and cobbled streets, and your children’s laughter literally fills the flat, you can still be so overcome by an impending loss and nostalgia for what hasn’t even completely passed. I know I need to enjoy the present. But it’s only because I also know the present slips away like quicksilver.

Our kids right now are still so sweet and relatively little. Each start of the school year, though, I brace myself, wondering if this is the year it all changes. When Caedmon, now 11, will stop talking to us. If Addie, 8, will have any run-ins with Mean Girls. When Ry, 6, loses the last remnants of his sometimes still-present toddler-speech. (“Mommy, I like wake-upping early.”)

Today on this most typical of school days, after drop-off, I went to my workout. And then I made a stop at Target for school supplies, where I met up with a friend who is also a recent free-mom. We perused the aisles at a leisurely pace, even had time and energy to admire the home décor. At one point, we looked at each other and eyes gleaming, cackled, “We don’t have to be anywhere!!!” It was pretty great.

I remember not too long ago, when entering a store with my children was like an audition for Supermarket Sweep. I’d plop the kids into the cart, and once we crossed the threshold into the store, my mental timer would start, and we’d whiz through the aisles, one arm throwing items into our cart and the other reaching into my stocked bag, doling out treats at strategic intervals. One time—and I don’t know why I did this—I stopped to chat with a friend in the very Target aisles I was now leisurely shopping, and I unleashed the animal that was RyRy and let him down from the cart. (WHY??) I remember it must have been near the Fourth of July, because it wasn’t long before he was grabbing red-white-and-blue pinwheels and, scattering them like daisies, proceeded to roll back and forth on the carpet among his bed of posies. Even though I must have been flustered that day, wrangling my toddler and stuffing pinwheels back into their display, I now look back on that memory with only fondness. Those were the days…

And these are the days, too, I know. We’ll have a good year; I’ll love sharing in what they’re learning, discussing the same books I read as a kid, navigating friendships with them, watching them as they continue to recognize and maneuver the intricacies of life. I know it’ll be a good year for me too, as I get to focus more on, well, me again. But it still squeezes my heart to cross this threshold—every threshold. Friends across my circles are waving to their children as they drive off with new licenses, setting up college dorm rooms, attending bridal showers for their soon-to-be daughters-in-law. This letting go seems to only continue on a more towering scale. And I’m sending out a three-finger salute in the way of Katniss Everdeen to signal a shared gratitude and grief, a solidarity, to all the moms and dads who are letting go in all ways big and small.

It donned on me that even as I was going through these same life milestones myself, I never once looked back, never realized that with all the sweetness in my life, that there might have been any ounce of bittersweetness in my parents’ responses. And I suppose that’s the way it’s meant to be. Moving through life now—as a parent—is such a different experience, as we take on more and more of a supporting role, to allow our children to do their thing and shine. I know I’ll love each stage; I’m going to embrace it. And when it’s over and it’s time to move on to the next stage, I’m going to mourn it too. My heart contracts at these beautiful junctures and milestones in our children’s lives. But then it will expand again, as it always does. And continue to beat hard and strong for what is today and for what is to come.