Just Change Your Own Diaper!

I can't wait until my kids are old enough to, like, get themselves ready and make their own breakfast and stuff. Right now, I have no choice but to jump right out of bed in the morning. Not only are the boys not old enough to (sufficiently, without a fiasco) take care of their own basic needs, they can't even really be trusted to hang around the house while I lounge around half-asleep for a few extra minutes. Because when that happens, there are almost always incidents with toilet paper or permanent markers or forks or pretzels. Or all of the above.

This has been especially difficult lately because I've had some issues with morning sickness. Nothing too severe, but enough to make me feel like not getting up the second my eyes pop open. As a result, I've been feeling insanely jealous of people whose kids are of an age where they can wake up and fend for themselves. You know, at least fix their own cereal and whatnot.

Yes, I realize that Colin is six years old, and that he could probably - if I'd let him - pour his own cereal. The problem is, I know that would involve climbing on the counters and scaling the front of the fridge to get a gallon of milk that will inevitably be too heavy for his scrawny little bird-arms to manage and it would result in a milky mess all over my floor and at almost $4 a gallon, milk is too expensive to risk wasting like that, y'all. Plus then that would mean that not only would I have to get up, but I'd have to get up and mop. And make the cereal anyway. And even if Colin could successfully manage to get himself some cereal, there's the issue of his two little brothers who, at three and two, are NOT nearly old enough to obtain their own breakfast. But they would think that since big brother did it, they surely should be allowed to do it too. Which would equal an automatic disaster.

It's not even just that, though. Do you ever fantasize that your kids are old enough to, like, be left at home while you just run somewhere real quick? The other night we ran into Curtis's boss and his wife without their kids and they were all, "We just snuck out for a while and left the kids at home, tee hee" and I was secretly harboring some INSANE jealousy because their children are old enough for that to be an option. I don't remember the last time I just went somewhere with Curtis, by ourselves, without having to pin down some childcare first. And usually? It's expensive.

Also? It would be so nice to, say, run to the store without having to ensure that three (soon-to-be four!) children are properly dressed and acceptably clean, with shoes, and herding them into the car and buckling them into carseats and booster seats and listening to Veggie Tales CDs (thanks a bucket, Chick-Fil-A) all the way to the store and then getting them out and piling them into a cart while threatening them within an inch of their lives if they misbehave and managing them all throughout the store and fielding "I wants" and "can I haves" left and right and then doing it all over again - only with groceries - on the way home.  

Of course, all this is a moot point ... a pipe dream ... a fantasy that will not see the light of reality for, oh, another eight or ten years at a minimum. (Well, the "leaving them home" part, anyway). At least I have the ray of hope that within the next three or four years, I won't have to wipe anybody's butt any more.

I know everyone says I'll miss it when they actually are old enough to be independent (perhaps not the butt-wiping, but their little-kidhood in general). But man, it sure does sound awesome from here ...