"Cha-cha-changes, ": Confessions of a Crazy Woman

My baby, the youngest of the 3, is starting kindergarten tomorrow. There is a small part of me that is ready to start a congo line down the middle of my street in celebration of this milestone and the freedom that it symbolizes. However, my current emotional state is far from jubilant. It's more of a combination of extreme melancholy and profound neurosis. The past 9 years, those in which I have been a mother, have passed by at an alarmingly rapid rate. In between the phone calls and the e-mails and the errands I always thought I'd have the luxury of time; there would always be more time to sit on the floor and play babies or match box cars or board games. The mind-numbing mornings spent sitting on the sofa clutching my coffee mug wishing away Dora the Explorer & The Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, sadly, are forever gone. Just like that an era is over. It's not as though I get to throw in the towel now that all of them are in elementary school ('See ya kids! You are on your own now! Mommy is going to go toss back some martinis and go take tennis lessons!'). But, I wonder if I have been a good steward of my time? Have I spent these past 9 years wisely? In 9 more years, my oldest will be getting ready to go to college. I only have 9 more years to teach him the stuff he's supposed to know before he leaves home. I know I've squandered some of my time as a mother. God knows it's almost impossible to extract every ounce of purposeful, teachable moments out of your time spent with your kids. There is a lot of static or times when the screen is just blank.

I think I'm my own worst critic. If I had to fill out an evaluation of myself per kid on my performance thus far, I'd probably be circling a whole lot of 6 and 7's (you know, on one of those Likert scales from 1-10 with 10 as the highest). There would be some 2's and 3's (oral hygiene, enforcement of proper language). But I'd have written in a bunch of comments about how I could improve my patience or have been more attentive or spent more time with each kid individually.

Everyone tells you it goes by so quickly, raising your kids. Whenever someone tells me that, a veteran parent-the kind with teenagers or college kids (as opposed to an active duty parent like me-the kind with the little shits still pissing you off more often than not)-I usually smile and nod in polite agreement and then think , "Shut the f_ck up! You aren't scraping blueberries off the hardwood floors or refereeing petty arguements!" But, you know what, those people, the veterans, they are absolutely right. They wouldn't volunteer to do your shift for you, but they are sitting there filling out their own evaluation forms and wishing they could go back and do some things better.

So tomorrow morning will come and it will go but I hope in 3 months, when I am kvetching over 3 different sport team practices and homework and special projects, that I remember how I feel right now. I hope that I am reminded of what a priviledge it is to be given the responsibility of parenthood. I hope that I will remember that I am accountable for my actions as a mother; accountable to my Creator, to my kids and to society. I hope that I savour even the most trivial and aggravating parts of the job, because in the blink of an eye, it will all be over.

(all of this said and I haven't even commented on how freaked out I am about what I am going to do with my time. Now that the noble job of parenting will be largely taken over by the public schools between the hours of 8 am-3 pm). That is where the neurosis factors in-talk about identity crisis. I think this is what they mean by a mid life crisis. Neurotic doesn't even begin to explain how insecure I am feeling right now.