When our kids grow up

a new bed & a familiar ache

This past weekend, and on my 11th wedding anniversary, my husband and I decided to spend the evening putting together a new bunk bed for my three-year-old daughter, Laura. It’s one of those fancy bunkbeds with a slide that we bought at half the price from a friend. 

Our house is tiny. We live upstairs and rent out our downstairs to help offset the mortgage with these wildly high interest rates. Laura and my 4 month old son, Jack, will be sharing a small room together once he’s old enough to move in. Oh, the joys (and, probably the fights) this will bring! 

This bunkbed with the slide, it’s way too big for this small room, but we made it work after moving it around this way and that. After assembling it late that Saturday evening, our daughter Laura was ecstatic. Since putting that bed together, she’s probably been up and down that slide 300+ times. It’s her favorite thing in the WORLD right now. 

It makes a big thunk when she comes down it…our poor downstairs renter… 

Now, when you put up a new bed, you also have to take down the old. This is something I was not ready for. 

That Saturday evening when I tucked her into bed, I couldn’t get into her bed and snuggle like I did before. The bed is much higher and enclosed like a little house, not to mention the steps broke a bit as my husband toted it into our home and it and may not be sturdy enough for a 34-year-old to come up and down. 

My goodnight to her was brief. She was excited to go to sleep in her new bed. There was a grief to this. 

Her old bed was gone, and so were the rituals we did with it. The old bed was now downstairs in our garage area, waiting for a buyer from Facebook marketplace. 

That night, I was so happy for her. But I was also sad because of this new transition I wasn’t quite ready for…

Now, three days later, I just was going through old pictures and videos from two years ago, seeing my little girl much smaller than she is now. 

 The grief hit me again like a pinch. 

She’s growing up. He’s growing up. I can’t stop it. 

grief & gratitude

And for me, with that grief-pinch also comes some voices of regret. The voices tell me I should have been more present with her… should’ve cherished her more… Shouldn’t have been so distracted with certain areas of my life back then… it goes on and on and on… 

The should’s always come with their sting. 

Some of these “should’s” have glimpses of truth.  Yes, there were moments I was distant and distracted and just wanted a way out of the mundane. 

I am learning to learn from what I did and what I didn’t do as a new mom. 

Yet, when I peer back underneath these critical voices I see a feeling that needs tending to. I see sadness. 

Sadness because I can’t go back and relive those sweet moments with her. All I have are the videos to watch and the memories to hold. Same with my son and the early weeks of my crazy, wild, beautiful maternity leave. I can’t have it back, but I can look back and see what I loved and what I wish I could have changed. 

Sadness because so much of their lives are out of my control. I can’t just put them in a bottle and have them like this forever. 

Sadness because they will keep getting older and older and one day they will grow out of this bunkbed too. 

When I give myself the space to feel the sadness that the “should’s” try to hold back, I feel a little softer towards myself. This feeling would be here no matter what I did or didn’t do back then. I’d still feel this way if I chose not to work, and if all I did was look at them and play all day (which is impossible to do and stay sane). 

This is how motherhood goes. This is what we all experience, this ache of our kids getting older. 

And the truth is, I loved her then,  and I love her now. I loved my boy as a newborn and I just love him at 4.5 months. 

I grieve, and I am so, so grateful. 

growth is holy

When I ponder all of this, I also wonder how God might see me here as his child.

How does he experience me “growing up?”

In my spirit, I believe he delights in my growing and in my spiritual maturity. God does not want me to stay young or small. If that were the case, perhaps he would have made us all little people to stay little forever to coo and cuddle with. 

God made me to be someone who grows.

In this way, growth is good. 

Growth is holy. 

Delighting in and supporting my kids’ maturity and independence is a mirror of what I believe God does with me. He delights in my growing so I will delight in theirs.

The purpose of my parenting is not to keep them for myself. It’s not to keep them small and cute and a seedling forever. It’s to nurture them into a strong tree, where their strength and beauty glorify the Maker of the whole forest, and where they bear much fruit.

This parenting journey is less about me (although I am being continually refined through the process) but it is more about them and about him and what he is doing through them. I can rest and release in that.

I can ache, and I can celebrate their growth at the same time.

Both can be true and real.