Aware

Yesterday, my daughters asked to watch videos of themselves as babies. I’m so grateful to a past version of myself for making these videos; I love watching them as much as the kids do.

In one of the videos, I filmed a long sequence of the girls at play. In the clip, a two-year-old Y.B. stands at her play kitchen “feeding” a doll in a high chair. She works with great solemnity and contemplation, crooning to the babydoll, offering it various treats from an array of pots and pans.

All the while, the onscreen A.N. is a blur of activity. She pushes a chair around the kitchen, crowing. She swings her stuffed lamb in my hanging silverware caddy. She pulls her potty down the stairs and tries to interest Y.B. in “taking a bath” in it.

Watching this video rips me up a bit. These little people are familiar to me: Baby Y.B. with her seriousness and nurturing, Tiny A.N. plotting zaniness. But these two-year-olds are also gone forever—Y.B.’s round, soft cheeks; A.N.’s staggering walk. I will probably never have two-year-old twins again. And these particular girls will definitely never be two again.

* * *

This bittersweetness has been on my mind a lot recently. First there was Jenny’s translated excerpt from Chana Katan’s memoir, where the author writes about her remorse at missing much of raising her 13 children (!) while she worked as a doctor. My own parents have been expressing a more subtle sense of regret, something more like not having realized how quickly all of this, the raising of young children, goes by.

But it seems to kind of go on and on when you're in the thick of it, right? Bitterly so. I’m inclined to believe that the sweetness can only be appreciated in retrospect.

And yet. I feel awful when I watch these videos taken just a couple of years ago. I feel like I had something wonderful that is gone now, and I didn't even realize it. I realized enough to film it, at least. But I didn’t fully grasp it. Feeling that way chips at my skepticism just a little.

* * *

I took my girls to the playground yesterday morning. I was only with them for a half hour before a teenager came to take over so I could go to a shiur. For as long as I have been taking my kids to the park, watching them has meant keeping an eye out that they don’t kill themselves or someone else.

Today, I decided to take that thirty minutes to really watch my daughters, just enjoy seeing them having fun together and negotiating their interactions. I observed them, wondering which parts of them will pass away into the air, which parts will stay with them for life.

* * *

My favorite parenting moments, the exchanges that seem to have some aspect of eternity in them—they are one-on-one moments with my kids. The most effective discipline and education also happens this way, in the intimacy of a quiet conversation with one child. But even though I try to carve out these times with my kids, most of my parenting consists of issuing directives or flinging requests at a buzzing crowd that I address collectively as “children.”

I have two five-year-olds and a three-year old. I didn’t intend to have them so closely spaced, really. Infertility treatment resulted blessedly in twins, and a happy surprise resulted in B.A.’s appearance before the girls turned two.

From where I sit, it seems like a lot of fun to be one of three close-in-age siblings. But sometimes it also feels less than ideal to parent them this way. All the more so because I didn’t grow up in a family like this one—I’m one of two kids and my sister and I are five years apart. I didn’t even know any families like this until I was an adult. It feels like I’m inventing something out of whole cloth most days.

It’s so easy to miss what’s going on with any one child at any moment, simply because they are all so insistent and demanding, and because I have the attention span of a hummingbird. But right now, I’m trying to notice opportunities to connect deeply with my children, even if they don’t happen under ideal circumstances.

This was last night: I was trying to nudge A.N. through her bedtime routine (she’s also a hummingbird) while a toilet-training B.A. demanded his potty prize even though he’d only been sitting on the potty for two seconds and I was trying to convince him to try a bit longer and he was yelling and Y.B. was trying to get my attention trying trying TRYING LOUDER and when I turned to listen to what she was saying, my earring hit her in the face and I was sure she was going to start complaining about that and then instead she said:

“Ima, your earrings are SO beautiful.”

So I just stopped. I stopped and looked her in the eyes. We smiled at each other, and I said thank you, and tried to show her with my face how much I appreciated her saying so. I let this linger a while before I gave her a kiss and went back to giving up on B.A. and shepherding A.N. into brushing her teeth.

I know some pain and regret are necessary, a part of the deal. And many aspects of raising small children are just unpleasant to live through; I don’t care how precious my mother says they are in retrospect. But I don’t want to let that overshadow the sweetness I’m living. I want to notice and grasp onto what I have while it’s still in front of me.