I'm sure there will come a time, when my boy has hair on his chest, that I will miss when he begged me to carry him from room to room. I'll walk into a neat room that was once my daughter's and pine for the days when the floor was covered with doll clothes and magic markers. Sometimes, even now, I wish I could freeze them where they are, self-sufficient but still innocent. But mostly I feel relief as they get older. It's a tunnel, these childbearing years, and there is an end.
Diapers go, then strollers.
They learn to pour their own juice and put on their own socks. They spend hours at friends' houses and eat grapes whole. You can take a shower. You can wear clothes that won't be spit up upon. You can be vain.