It seems to me that we are about to embark on a very new time in our lives. One where our day to day lives involve only each other. One where we have kids away at school and very limited time committed to them on a 24-hour basis. Sure they will be part of our every day lives. There will be thousands of phone calls, video chats, urgent messages, etc. They will always need us (mostly you) in some way every day. They will be far but near. However, you and I will always be "near".
This got me to thinking about just what a great choice we made to have them when we were young. How opposite that is of most people and how amazing the opportunity in front of us as a result of our choice. We have always said that having them young would free us up at a young age to enjoy a long life together, but I think there are other forces that made our decision so wise.
We were barely kids ourselves when we had the girls. You officially were a teenager when you first got pregnant and I was not far from acting like one. We were young, knew very little about life or parenting and seemed way out of comfort zone. But magically it worked. Magically you made us a family.
One of the biggest benefits in having the girls at a young age is that we got to grow up with them. As we learned about life so did they. As we made mistakes we got to have them close by to comfort us. As we learned what life was all about we got to make sure they knew as well. Life lessons weren't far from our memories and so when they learned life lessons we were right there with in many cases very recent memory to guide us through the situation. We don't have those "back in the day" stories to compare our children's lives to, we have current days to compare to their current days.
Lets face it, most of our marriage we have been broke. We weren't "career" oriented or workaholics. Mostly because we were at ages in live where we worked for someone else and didn't have that great of work responsibility. It meant that we could be with our kids. We gave them time. And it wasn't just regular time - it was always fun time. We were able to really play with them. Enjoy them daily. We had the added benefit of the boys to be extra playmates. We did silly things like dress up, singing, hour long baths, playing in the yard, movies, etc. Mostly not expensive things, but always very involved things. We made them laugh and in turn they made us laugh.
We also had the benefit of being young enough to participate and understand in most everything they were doing. Coaching soccer, being a team mom, coaching little league, being a room mom or whatever. But we also were able to be involved in other things that older parents wouldn't have participated in. We enjoyed music with them, we got on Facebook, we video chatted, IM'd, texted, etc. Things many older parents would have scoffed at as ridiculous - we did right along with them. We embraced most of their friends, because we were young and sort of cool (you were always cool). We taught them to interact with adults because in a way we were also "interacting with adults". We were fun - so they hung around more than other kids did with their parents. It was good to be young - had we been old we would have had other priorities.
But the most important part is that we gave them all the love we had. We gave them all of us - everything we had to give them. They were our number one priority in life because we never had a chance to have other more important priorities. Even as we aged, we knew that including them closely in our lives was the only way to do things. They taught us to be good parents. we learned on the fly. I think being young made that so much easier - we made a good choice.
So now we move on to "adulthood". I don't think you will change at all. You will very likely be that "young" grandparent (not in a Florida white trash sort of way). You will get to start all over again. Pretty nice huh? This decision of ours just keeps getting better and better.
It will be odd to have them both gone. But I am sure they will teach us a few new things about being on our own too. See we all just keep growing up together don't we?
Just a quick reminder that they are so lucky to have you (as am I) - you made this family what is is today. Thank you my love.
You're the world to me. I love you more than anything in the world.
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