My Single Mom Life

So it's almost 3am and I'm sitting here wide awake, bored, surfing the net, clicking through channels, just doing anything I can to relieve myself of the insomniac boredom.

Finally, I see that a couple of blogs have been updated, and I rush to my feed reader to be entertained.
I find this most awesome post by Sarcastic Mom, a letter to her son Braden on his 15 month anniversary of being alive.

It was a long and beautiful, and hysterically funny letter.
I was laughing at all the silly things 15 month olds do, what mine used to do.
I felt the frustration when they do things that aren't quite so funny, like try to touch things they shouldn't, and peeing and pooping with free abandon.
And oh, all the wonderful moments, the laughs, the first potty achievement, the first time they knew what to do with toy trucks and discovering how things work.
Then the things that just grate on your very last nerve, like non-stop crying, shrieking, wailing, tantrums, all those things that make a mom question not only when will this phase end, but will I be sane when it does?

My sons are almost full grown now, this letter made me all nostalgic, even a little weepy for those days that are now so far gone from my life.
What has replaced the running around naked days, and the discovering belly buttons and other body parts, the smiles, the teeth growing in, the huge wide-eyed wonder, is young men with ideas of their own, stretching out, reaching out, for lives of their own.

Most days are still really good, they amaze me every day with how much they have grown, but now it's not just testing the limits, it's pushing them.
There are days they come home from school and are in such foul moods, all I want to do is help, and it's met with "I don't want to talk about it!"
Saying no to letting them stay up late on school nights so they can finish this one last level, is retorted with "I hate you!"
They are taller than me, stronger than me.
Where did my cute little babies go?
Where did the time go?

Sometimes I wish I could go back to that wonderful age, and yes, it is wonderful, to hear the shriek again.
Oh how I miss the days when they would bolt up after I would wipe their ass clean and try to put on a new diaper, and they would run giggling at decibel 10, naked through the house as I raced frantically after them.
I miss the days when they discovered bugs for the first time, or a family pet let them cuddle, and how much happiness lit up in their eyes.
I miss the light in those eyes, the wonder, the curiosity, the poop and pee, the everything.

They'll be gone soon, and I'll be left wondering where the time went, and what did I miss?
Was I good enough, did I teach them enough, was any of the struggle good enough?
I'll miss the 'I hate you's and the battles to stay up.
I'll miss it all, just like I miss the baby days, the lack of sleep, the poop, the pee, the worrying over fevers, the teething, and yes, even the shrieks.
Time just goes by far too quickly, it's simply not enough time to take it all in and find the awesomeness of every little thing.