Don't Wish Your Life Away

The story of a dingy, white step stool and two exhausted parents.

That godforsaken bathroom stool.

I sat on the side of our bathroom tub, brushing my teeth and staring at the dingy, white, plastic kid’s stool that was half under the sink and half in the middle of the floor of our tiny New York City bathroom. I wished I could get rid of that thing.

I wished my kids were tall enough that they could get everything they needed out of the vanity without standing on top of the toilet and breaking my toilet seat cover.

Wishing my kids were older and more self-sufficient didn’t seem like too much to ask.

That’s when I flashed back to my mother driving me to high school on cold, Upstate New York mornings in our 1969 yellow Beetle. I could see myself at 15, slouching in the front seat, as I angrily stared at her platinum hair and her face with too much make up. I was contemplating whether or not the kids would see her if she dropped me off behind the school when I said (for the millionth time), “I wish I had my driver’s license.” The “so I can drive myself to school” part was implied, and we both knew it.

My mom took a deep drag off her cigarette that she casually held out the triangle window and said, “Don’t wish your life away, kid.”

I grumbled something about how she didn’t know what was really important in life before I went back to my self-imposed teenage silence.

I recall that very same feeling, years later when I had two young kids. Many great writers have expounded on what happens to your life when you have babies, so I won’t go into detail, except to say it was a time when my daughter shit mustard-colored poop down the front of me and I merely sighed and finished my wine before attempting to clean it up.

At that time in my life, it seemed like every empty nester I met felt the need to wax poetically about how precious those early years are and how I shouldn’t take them for granted. The conversation generally culminated in how they wished they could go back in time and lie down in bed with their daughter (who was currently in college and not calling anywhere near enough) and read to her like they did when she was little.

I knew, on some level — the kind of level that lives deep down in the recesses of my brain, that they were right. But all I could think about was how I had to stop reading in bed with my daughter because after bonding with her head to head each night over books, she gave me lice.

My kids are now eight and six, and time is indeed flying by. My daughter has already slammed her bedroom door, stomped her feet and rolled her eyes so hard that I thought her eyeballs might come out of their sockets. My son thinks it’s hilarious to pull down his pants and shake his rump. In both situations, we try not to laugh and then have hushed conversations about how we hope that behavior stops by college.

But I have to admit, we’re in the sweet spot. I can take them on a plane without ending up with crushed cheerios in my hair. The physical exhaustion has lessened (they can make their own breakfast while I sleep until eight!) and the emotional exhaustion (fear of teen pregnancy) hasn’t yet begun. They’re fun, funny and still so naïve that they ask questions like, “Mama, what are drugs?” (Yes, I took that opportunity to begin the teachings of “Just Say No” to crack.)

Just the other day, as we got ready to leave for school, I tried to hand my daughter her light-up sneakers. She completely ignored me and reached for her tall, black boots. I watched her zipping up the boots, realizing she was now well over four feet tall. When did that happen? I tried to be funny, gently pushing down on her head and said, “Stop. Growing!” She giggled and said, “Mooooom. Stop it.”

And inside, my heart broke just a little bit.

So, to the parents who have come before me, you are right. I need to learn to enjoy this time because soon enough, they will be grown-ups who can’t make it home for the holidays because they’re skiing in Aspen with their college friends.

That’s going to suck because, by then, I’ll have (mostly) forgotten about the lice and the mustard-colored poop, and I’ll be wondering why my babies don’t want to spend time with me.

And I’m sure when I walk into the house of someone with young kids, I’ll see that tiny little step stool in their bathroom, and I’ll imagine my kids, standing on it, on their tippy toes, reaching up so high into the sky for the toothpaste. And when I’m done wiping the tears from my face, I’ll walk straight out into the living room of those exhausted parents and tell them just how good they have it.

In the meantime, I’ve decided to clean the stool and keep it for another year or two because it really doesn’t take up that much space.

This story was previously published in Medium on November 26th, 2017. Subscribe so you can get notified when the “behind the scenes” podcast episode drops about this story. What a difference a few years makes!