With small kids I lost sight of myself — but my kids reminded me

You know how it is when you have small children. Although my oldest is 11 and my youngest is already two, it’s been a thin spread of nights in the past 12 years that I’ve slept a full night (thank you delicious five-year-old who still doesn’t sleep through the night.)

When you have small children, you’re subsumed, consumed, completely given over to the varied aspects of their care. No time for spouse, no energy for self (do I even have a self?). The days mesh together, filled with their infinite joys and delights, with challenges and frustrations too numerous and exasperating to recount.

And always, the self-doubt. You were too firm, yet you still feel like a pushover. You said only a fraction of what was on your mind, yet it was still far too much.

Were you safety conscious or were you a helicopter? Were you encouraging independence or were you negligent and permissive? You need a manual, but no one ever gave you one. You agonize, you philosophize, sometimes you just pragmatize.

You forget that there’s another world beyond the one that spins upon your axis. Other people are marrying off children, starting new jobs, fulfilling ambitions, while you can’t think beyond the next diaper or dinner.

You live in an alternate universe and you’re always surprised when you realize there are adults out there who think about things other than the little people in their care. You forget — or maybe you just can’t imagine — that your little people will one day be adults too.