images3.jpgI was driving by our neighborhood park the other day, and remembering the endless hours I spent there with my children. We probably went there four or five times a week, and their dad took them there when I needed some Quiet Time, and we ate picnic dinners there, and it was just a major hangout place for our family.

And then I realized, I couldn’t remember the last time that I took my younger daughter there to play. Of course I didn’t know then that it was the last time, but at some point we stopped going. She stopped wanting to swing on the swings and climb the climbing structure and slide down the slide. She lost interest in the ducks and the faux Western backdrop and the concrete horses and the stagecoach. (OK, now you locals know exactly what park I’m talking about!) We went last summer, to entertain my godchild, but it was for her sake, not for my daughter’s. What if I had known? If some voice had said to me, “This is the last time you will be coming to this park.” Would I have enjoyed it more? Prolonged it? I don’t know. Part of me would have wanted to drag my feet, but part of me was eager to move on. I was never a happy playground mom. I put up with it okay, but “Chase me! Push me! Catch me!” was never my idea of a fine time. I was the kind of mom to sit with my back against the tree, reading a book, looking up and waving occasionally (does that sound awful).

And then I started thinking about all the “last times” that have slipped by over the past years, without me having any knowledge that it would be the last. It made me feel kind of choked up.

I couldn’t remember the last time I had carried either one of my daughters. Of course, I used to carry them all the time, on my back, or on my hip, and they were glued to me like velcro. Years and years of toting them around. But at some point, they both crossed over a hundred pounds, and long before that I put them down for the last time and did not pick them up again.

I can’t remember the last time we went to a toy store.

I can almost remember the “last” kid movie, because it was recently. The one about the house – Monster House? But I can’t remember the last time we watched a Disney movie (I am sort of thankful about this, although we all have a soft spot for Mulan). I can’t remember the last time I cut their food for them. I can’t remember the last time I brushed their hair.

We’re on to different kinds of firsts now: first school dances, first time driving. In less than two years, my oldest will have her Last Night Living Permanently Under our Roof. Snif.

There are so many great things about having Older children. You can truly enjoy the same movies. And the same music. You can have cool and meaningful conversations that blow your mind. And of course there are things to give up, both good and bad. I truly do not miss the diaper bags and the strollers and the hauling everything around part. I don’t miss tantrums (which still, occasionally occur). Yesterday I went into this cafe that had been converted into kind of a playspace, a coffee shop plus indoor playground. The mothers looked sort of happy, sort of exhausted, sort of glad to be there and sort of tortured. I sat there, kidless, with my laptop, and felt sort of envious and sort of massively relieved.

That’s the rub of parenthood: you get all of what you get when you get it, and you give it up to get other stuff. I had to give up the nursing and the sweet smelling adorableness in order to get the intelligent, interesting beings I live with now. It’s sad, it’s great, and there’s nothing to do but try and savor each stage for the good stuff.