I'm becoming increasingly aware of the fact that John and I are very likely living the best years of our lives right now. That today will one day become the "good old days" we look back on with fondness and nostalgia.
In terms of family life, I'm not sure it gets better than having small children. Not babies anymore, but not really big kids yet. They still think we're the most important and most awesome people in the universe and for the most part they can be disciplined and distracted by a reward of going to the dollar store to pick out a cheap toy (or not getting to go, if they've been naughty). Any bad behaivior they may exhibt at this point is temporary, fixable, not too terribly worrisome because they're young enough to work on it.
That said, raising two young boys can feel like a hellish gauntlet of timeouts, tantrums, picky eating and breaking up brother vs brother wrestling matches before someone gets killed. Though I realize we've got it pretty damned good right now, sometimes I forget to appreciate it during the day to day grind. Too often days and weeks go by and the next thing I know someone's outgrown a pair of pants or these shoes got too small or my baby has learned to write his name. I become worried that if I blink my boys will suddenly be grown and I've missed it!
I can imagine us in old age saying "remember when we were broke and living in that apartment in Beaverton?" We'll talk about how much it sucked to only have one car and how the budget was tight, but how much more we enjoyed our weekends togther when we got to "splurge" once a week and take the boys to a buffet and then head over to the Goodwill to look for awesome bargains. Remember when we were so excited about that old free TV for the bedroom? Or refurnished our living room for $60? Remember when you came home and wondered why we had a new coffee table and I sheepishly told you about how I liberated it from the dumpster like that couple on Portlandia? Remember when we moved into that apartment we thought we'd stay for 6 months and we lived there for years and years? (going on 3 now!). Remember how being broke made me start writing for money and how awesome it made me feel to contribute to our finances by doing something I loved? Remembe how even though I had to stay up late at night to write and you went to bed early because you worked that crazy early shift we'd still make time to watch TV together for an hour after the kids went to bed? Remember how we felt like such a team? Remember when Alex used to steal stuff out of the recycling bin and tape it to his bedroom wall? Remember when Max would sneak into the bedroom every single night and snuggle with me? Remember how we appreciated everything just a little bit more?
Yeah, I think this is the good life. I'll try to remember to appreciate more while I'm living it.
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