There is an article going around the Mommy Blog world, and women all over the place are cheering it on.  It’s the one where the mom complains about older moms who always come up to you and tell you how fast it all goes and to appreciate your children, because they loved raising kids.

I’m not linking the article.  I’m too lazy and grouchy to look for it (still nothing from the city on the sewage problem), and quite frankly, I don’t really agree with it.

Anyone with kids knows it’s true: Time goes by too fast when you have kids.

Baby Z?  She’s already 13 months.

Goose is in second grade.  Wasn’t it just yesterday that I was crying because Lance wanted to send him to school?  Squirt graduates next year!  And the Baby Hulk is supposed to start K next year.  That sweet little boy who was in the NICU for two weeks.  The little boy who I held all day long with wires all over his little body is reading, running with pure abandon and singing songs from the radio.

And No David, the 3 year old, well he wants what the big boys want so he already has Pokemon cards.  (No, I didn’t buy him those, his brothers shared.)  I don’t even get to enjoy cute 3 year old things with him because he’s decided he’s too big.

Baby Z is trying, okay barely, to stand on her own.

When did all this happen?

I was living every second of it.  And yet, it still passed right before my eyes.

How can any mother out there not admit that it goes by fast?

And please, I am no Pollyanna.  I talk more about my kids and their issues than most people.  On the phone and on my blog.  I am the first to admit how frustrating parenting can be.  How annoyed I can get by my kids’ antics.  

Maybe that’s the key.  The author talks about feeling the need to be in a constant state of parenting ecstasy.  I’ve never felt that pressure.  Maybe I’ve got better friends.  Friends who listen when my kids are being difficult, and I’m feeling down about the job I’m doing.  

Sure older moms tend to forget the hard part of raising kids.  Grandparents think everything your kids do is cute when secretly you want to spank them even though you don’t spank.  But what a cynical, crappy society we’d be if our memories weren’t skewed a bit. 

Maybe older moms say things like that because they know better.  They know we need to appreciate our children even in the rough times.  Like when they act like little shits at the swim club week after week after week.  Sure it would be nice to hear them say they’ve been through it before, but I’m sure if they did we’d find something wrong with that too.

My reality is that time flies by too freaking fast for me.  I am doing my best to appreciate every single second I have with my kids.  And not because one day I’ll be an old lady, but because for today, I am blessed to have five amazing children still living under my roof.  I want to appreciate the life that has been so generously given to me.