The Middle
In about ten minutes, the house will no longer be quiet. I’m quickly trying to finish my afternoon coffee, praying it will give me the endurance to cross the witching hours’ finish line. I had heard of the witching hours before kids, but like many things in motherhood, I couldn’t quite understand this atrocity until I had my own school-aged children.
I gulp down the last few drops, which are still hot. Unlike this morning’s coffee that got cold while I was doing one kid’s hair, explaining to another that he indeed is at the age he needs deodorant, and trying to get the other to get his shoes on so we can load up. All this while yelling at the dog in the backyard to stop eating his own poop. The colder my coffee gets, the slower I drink it, and the slower I drink it, the more I need it. Ahh, the irony.
The school day is over; it’s 3:35 pm, and I’m enjoying my last gulp as the bus that sounds like a freight train makes its way onto our street. I set my cup down and run out the front door, almost forgetting to latch it. It’s been broken since the day we moved in. Thankfully, I see our labradoodle charging down the stairs towards me through the glass door, and I slam it shut before he escapes.
My daughter is the first off the bus. She is already trying to arrange a get-together with the neighbor. However, I have afternoon snacks to get, backpacks to unload, a full tree of paperwork to go through, homework to be done, dinner to start, and two-thirds of our kids to get ready for baseball practice. I have officially entered the witching hours. I sigh, grateful for these growing humans and reminiscent of one of the quiet house I had just moments earlier. Motherhood is like that: a constant war between gratitude and feeling overwhelmed.
I managed to get in the front door without letting the dog out. All three kids are kicking their shoes off at the same time. They all land in front of the door for everyone to trip over. “Guys, put your shoes in the basket!” I shout as I head upstairs. The same basket I’ve designated for shoes since we moved in. They simultaneously try to throw them in like they are at a free-shot tournament. With every sound of one hitting the recently painted wall, I cringe. Then, everyone brings me their lunch boxes as we start our after-school routine.
My five-year-old daughter, our youngest, brings me her’s and says, “Mom, some kids get a paper thingy in their lunch; it’s like a note that a mom or dad can write on. Can you ask my teacher how I can get one?” I laugh. “Babe, I don’t have to ask your teacher; I can just write you a note.”
The guilt starts to infiltrate my heart and mind. How have I never written her a note? I was the mom who would send Pinterest-worthy cookies in with her oldest brother. And not just to school but to his Mother’s Day out program. I used to make heart-shaped cheese to go with the crackers in their lunch!
I read so many books when I was pregnant with our first. There was no shortage of books on pregnancy, sleep training, whether or not to vaccinate, how to nurse, how not to feel guilty if you don’t nurse, taming your toddler, and the terrible twos….. oh wait, now it’s the terrible threes. There were books for parenting older children and the teenage years, and there were even books for boundaries as your young adult child gets married and you find yourself in another new season.
A huge chunk of childhood years is missing from the library of parenting books. No one talks about the middle years, the in-between—the years between goldfish and driver’s licenses. Everyone warned me of the newborn and toddler exhaustion, but no one warned me of the exhaustion that occurs when they are all in school. I thought that was when things got easier, and it made more sense for me to return to work when I finally got more “me” time. Instead, I’m introduced to a season of being needed even more. More exhaustion! Yet, it’s not just the physical kind; it’s also the emotional kind.
I miss the days when the only things on our calendar were play dates and well-child checks. I remember longing for our firstborn to start tee ball. We would have something other than dress-up and Play-Doh to add to our calendar. Now, we spend almost every day of the week at a practice, game, or tournament. I can’t get the kids to sit down and play with Legos for five minutes. While my feet are thankful for the less excruciating pain from stepping on one, my heart misses the quieter days. It doesn’t ache for lack of noise, but the soul kind. The kind where my mind would have had a chance to stop and write a note to stick in my daughter’s lunchbox.
I used to fret about our oldest sleeping with us until he was almost two. I was doing everything opposite of what the parenting books said. Why did I let it bother me so much? I didn’t think twice about it, as I registered him for middle school. I thought about why moms who had gone before me didn’t warn me of the middle years. The years when kids could get themselves ready for bed, yet that came with a sacrifice of the couch date my husband and I were once able to have, catching up on our latest Netflix binge. Now, when we finally get home from whatever we have on the calendar that night, our couch time turns into a group date. The kids don’t need as much sleep, and I can’t force a seven o’clock bedtime. We wouldn’t even be home from that evening’s activity by then. Sometimes, I would take the smell of a dirty diaper over sports cups, underwear, and shoes that smell like a grown man’s yet come from a human less than half the size.
I recently thought about a trip I took to the commissary years ago. I had just had my third baby. I was wearing her in my Boba as I pushed my two-and-a-half-year-old in the grocery cart. My five-year-old rode on the back, jumping on and off at the most inopportune times. I quickly tried to throw anything in the cart that resembled what was on the list, which crumbled in the same hand as I was pushing the cart. I knew I didn’t have long before the newborn needed to be nursed again and before my potty-training toddler needed restroom assistance. I frantically tried to grab the essentials without making eye contact with anyone who would slow down my mommy mission. “These years go fast … I remember when mine were that age.” I looked up to see an older woman. I wanted to be annoyed that she was interrupting my agenda, but I could tell her eyes told a different story. A story of admiration for the journey I was beginning. The same journey she was once on, yet in the blink of an eye, she was gone.
Today, as I go through backpacks and think about what my season of life looks like now, I remember the older lady in the grocery store. I don’t think she was referring to my season that day. I think she was referring to the middle years. I couldn’t have been prepared for them because I was focused on the beginning of my motherhood journey.
In most journeys, it’s the middle you look back on. The chaos, the eagerness, all the stuff that happens in between, the beginning and end …. the adventure. I pull out a notepad as I make the kid’s lunches for the next day. “Have a great day, a great journey.” I write. These are the witching hours. These are the middle years.
