[PiSSAT4motion]

I have 3 daughters. Wait til your 4 yo gets to the ages of tampons, boyfriends calling, friends backstabbing, makeup, and emotional blowouts...

The thought of that might contribute slightly to my feeling she's growing up too fast lol.

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[Papa Dras]

Absolute difference between boys and girls based on all the parents I know. Most of the ones with boys, can't wait for them to grow up and stop being such little ****s and the ones with girls are reminiscent and sensitive to their growth and progress.

 

[woofster]

Maybe I'm a softie but I get a heavy heart equally when I watch old videos or look at old photos of either my son or my daughter. Sometimes they do things that I "record" in my mind because I know that they will never be that age again and soon enough they won't need my wife & I doing those little things for them anymore.

 

[tbvvw]

Absolute difference between boys and girls based on all the parents I know. Most of the ones with boys, can't wait for them to grow up and stop being such little ****s and the ones with girls are reminiscent and sensitive to their growth and progress.

My son is very low maint, each one of my 3 daughters is 5X the work. I can go days over the summer without him asking for anything, the girls are an emotional roller-coaster 24/7. They were easy birth to 10 years old...then the hormones kicked in. YMMV

I don't drink Sun-Thurs...but that might need to change. :beer:

 

[damion16v]

I fear for the world when hormones hit my daughter. I lost count of the time outs yesterday before noon, and she was laughing at me each time. The highlight was her, like a cat walking by and taking a swipe at you, she walked up to the coffee table, gave it a look and swiped everything off (coffee I just made, remotes, keys, etc) with a pillow. You know, because.

Louie CK was on the mark that boy's do damage that you can measure in dollars, but girls destroy your soul. :laugh:

 

[tbvvw]

Louie CK was on the mark that boy's do damage that you can measure in dollars, but girls destroy your soul. :laugh:

He's 100% spot on.

 

[Papa Dras]

My son is very low maint, each one of my 3 daughters is 5X the work. I can go days over the summer without him asking for anything, the girls are an emotional roller-coaster 24/7. They were easy birth to 10 years old...then the hormones kicked in. YMMV

I don't drink Sun-Thurs...but that might need to change. :beer:

:laugh: I think my girls hormones kicked in around 3.

I stopped drinking Sun- Thur because I need the energy to keep up. :beer:

 

[BrianC]

I get those feels sometimes, mostly when I look at old pictures of them. However, I was feeling some mixed emotions today for two reasons:

1) My younger son just started high school today
2) My wife found a box of condoms (7 remaining out of 12!!!) in my 16 y/o son's bedroom I'm seriously freaking out over this.

The good news is that at least for now, they both have their 'heads screwed on straight' as my mother would say. They each have a good network of friends, aren't into any stupid sh!t (at least that I know about), and are very motivated academically. The older one has his heart set on U.Md College Park for aerospace engineering - he wants to be a rocket scientist He's also taking his road test

So mostly I'm just really proud of how they are developing and growing into young men, but yes, I do sometimes get a bit sad that they *need* us less and less.

 

[tbvvw]

2) My wife found a box of condoms (7 remaining out of 12!!!) in my 16 y/o son's bedroom I'm seriously freaking out over this.

That sure is a tough one, but I'll take that over another father calling you about a pregnant daughter.

The older one has his heart set on U.Md College Park for aerospace engineering - he wants to be a rocket scientist

Great program, and Goddard is a great place to start. I have several HS friends that have a BSAE from CP. None of them have ever had a problem with employment, and 2 became USAF pilots through MD ROTC.

 

[MagicBus]

...
i just think if i would have really thought about the timing that everything would have been 'better' for me if we had kids 5 years sooner.
so i would be turning approx 41 with a 7 and 9 yo, and 50 at end high school, instead of 58.

I'm 37 and my son is almost seven months old now. I can identify with that a bit.

Long, somewhat awkward story follows - apologies for that. I just find it hard to separate the past from the present. I'll address the OP's original question at the end. Everyone can skip to that if you like...




For a lot of reasons, the lateness couldn't be helped on my part. My wife and I got married in 2009, and due to the slow economy keeping me in a low paying job, we absolutely couldn't afford to start a family right away. In 2012, one of my older brothers had his first kid, and seeing my newborn niece gave me the push I needed to ignore finances. My wife and I decided to start a family and figure out the larger financial questions later. She got pregnant almost immediately, and we were overjoyed. Unfortunately, we lost the baby around 6 weeks into the pregnancy.

Doctors don't do any investigation on a single miscarriage. If you've been through it, you'll realize that it's far more common than you'd think and that a lot of people just don't talk about it. They told us to try again when we were ready and see what happened. Six months or so later we tried again, got pregnant almost immediately, and lost the second baby around the same point in the pregnancy.

In the following couple of years, we experienced several more losses (including twins), and saw a rotation of doctors, most of whom refused to do anything concrete to investigate or help us. Most of them just threw their hands in the air, shrugged their shoulders, wished us good luck, and shooed us out of their office. Of course, my wife had been compiling every scrap of data and evidence she could from all these doctors we'd seen. Finally, we met with a specialist and she presented all the info and her theory as to what was going on. The specialist looked at the info my wife had collected and scheduled an exploratory surgery. The specialist told us that if my wife was right, he could correct the problem as part of the diagnostic.

In early 2015, I took a day off work and took my wife in for the exploratory surgery. It was a quick procedure - under an hour. When she was in recovery, the specialist pulled me aside and told me that he thinks my wife was right and he was almost 100% sure he corrected the problem while he was in there. After she recovered, we decided to try again. In three years, we'd had five pregnancies end early and badly. Six children (including the aforementioned twins) we'll never meet.

We tried again. Once again, she got pregnant almost immediately. This time, the pregnancy was textbook perfect... to a point. Our son was due in mid April, 2016, but my wife's water broke in late February. The doctors were able to stabilize things, but the baby arrived six weeks early, in early March. Thankfully, he was healthy. Small, but healthy.

So, almost four years after first trying, we welcomed our son to the world. He's almost seven months old now. I'm watching him grow before my eyes and loving every minute of it. Sometimes, I get sad that I'll never get to see our first six grow up. I think about them a lot. They were very real to us. We haven't decided on timing (it's far too soon), but we're going to try for at least one more. The doctors think my son's earliness was a fluke and not related in any way to our previous losses.

the downsides to that i think is that older generations have a lot to share in experience and wisdom, which if they are dead... is just gone.

...

but its just something i think about now that the older generations of my family are passing/passed away.
the cohesion of the immediately family is a less because of the age gap, and WAY WAY less with the extended family now that various grandparents, aunts, and uncles are gone.

I have a much harder time identifying with this part. My parents are still around (my dad's 80 and my mom's almost 70). I'm glad they get to see my son once in a while, but compared to most essentially functional families, we're not very close. I can't really say they ever made much of an effort to impart wisdom, advice, or guidance of any sort on my brothers and I. Then again, from what I can gather, both sides of the family were of the mindset that children were to be seen, not heard. They weren't abusive - just more distant than I've learned is average.

My grandparents are all long gone, but I never once had any one-on-one time or a single conversation with any one of them. I'm sure some of that had to do with my mother's side of the family being in Canada and my father's side in Germany, but none of them were warm, gregarious people that I can gather. I have aunts, uncles, and cousins (once again, in Canada and Germany), none of whom I've seen or spoken to in any form in decades. The few times in my life that I met any of them, there was no effort on either side to get to know one another. They've made no effort to reach out to my brothers and me as the years have passed, and vice versa. At this point, they're strangers to me. Sometimes, I get a little jealous of people who grew up with close, extended families, but I feel no natural pull to get to know any of my extended family, nor to involve them in my son's life. Once again, I realize that's not quite normal.

 

[DonL]

Another longer post, sorry, but we’re getting things off our chest here. Not a rant, but more a venting.

I’ve been thinking about this quite a bit lately.

My wife and I married late, and spent a share of time screwing around, getting our jobs/careers in order, road tripping around like vagabonds sometimes. Never really planning a family, but not not planning it, either, if you understand. It’s not something we put stock in before we thought we were ready, until we starting feeling that something was missing. We didn’t know at the time that it was already essentially too late.

My wife experienced premature ovarian failure, prompting her body to start a premature menopause. She was 38. She was done. Game over. In spite of the heartbreak, frustration, and money tossed at specialists and clinics in an effort to start a family of our own, it wasn’t meant to be.

So, seven years ago, we stood before a judge in a small courtroom in Vladivostok and were granted adoption of our daughter. She’s a now week shy of 8.

The journey there was long, with a lot of hard decisions made to go the international route, and here we are.

Our daughter, it turns out, is special needs, about mid-spectrum autistic for an official diagnosis. Personally, we feel that there are elements of FASD, seeing as she was essentially born to a heroin-addicted alcoholic, but that’s beside the point.

With that said, we see so many small developmental milestones as huge accomplishments for her. Learning to read, dress herself, use a fork or spoon, wipe her own ass (a work in progress), all takes concerted efforts that many parents take for granted. Her “growing up” in this way leaves us frustrated and sad for other reasons. She may never marry. She may never be capable of supporting herself or living independently. She will likely always struggle with impulse control and often require medication to moderate her behavior. She’s currently not capable of initiating and fostering relationships and solid friendships. Will she be invited to birthday parties? Sleepovers? Who do we try to invite to her birthday party?

Even with this, we still try to take a day at a time, a week at a time, and lately, a school year at a time. We find joy in things others forget about. All those times we were asked by other parents and admitted she was still non-verbal, and people joked, “oh, wait until she starts talking, you’ll want her to shut up”? Yeah, screw you. Typical kids’ parents so often just don’t understand, or don’t want to understand. We find a great deal of strength with other families with kids that are like our daughter. Somehow, the kids just seem to “get” each other, as do the parents. Our families and friends have been supportive, but there's only so much we and they can do. Since we married late, all her cousins are around 10 years older, so she doesn't get that type of "family" time that some kids get. Our parents are all in their 80s, so they don't have the energy to watch her like other grandparents, so we try to make sure we spend enough time with them that she gets to know them the best she can.

So, yes, seeing her grow up makes us sad in some ways, but not for the reasons it makes others “sad”. In many ways, we’re overjoyed when we consider how far she’s come. We'll always have that, and celebrate as many of those moments as we can.

Feh, sorry, but I said I’m venting. I’m out.

 

[bnkrpt311]

I don't have much to add. Our son just turned 1 on the 3rd and we are loving watching him grow. He took 4 steps yesterday all on his own!

I do want to say thank you and give props to MagicBus and DonL for sharing their stories. It takes a lot to put that out there and I appreciate the honesty and perspective provided. :beer:

 

[Papa Dras]

Thanks for sharing DonL. :thumbup:

 

[DesertJets]

My son turns one in a few days and I guess subconsciously been looking at older photos of him lately. In a lot of ways I don't really miss those early days, weeks and months. I REALLY like that he consistently goes to bed every night by 7 and wakes up sometime between 6 and 7 the following morning. Having evenings to ourselves and being able to sleep through the night were such huge game changers. I like him where he is at right now because so much stuff is happening developmentally, and it seems like all of it is happening very rapidly too. He crawls like he has been doing it all his life and now he cruises around without any fear. Plus his personality is starting to come full bloom. I strongly suspect in a few years time I am going to miss this stage because it is really kind of cool and a lot of fun.

 

[Bibs]

Mixed emotions...My 4 year old boy is smart, funny, creative, independent, but has BIG emotions, and a stubborn streak. Once he's dug in, its over.
It's frustrating to fight with my "little boy" over seemingly small things...but its everything to him.

I know he'll get himself under control, but the days are long when the house isn't happy. It's a phase, and many people tell me he will be better off for it: I am told these personality types don't surrender to peer pressure, and can be great leaders.

from the weekend, he was done cooperating.

 

[Tornado2dr]

Mixed emotions...My 4 year old boy is smart, funny, creative, independent, but has BIG emotions, and a stubborn streak. Once he's dug in, its over.
It's frustrating to fight with my "little boy" over seemingly small things...but its everything to him.

I know he'll get himself under control, but the days are long when the house isn't happy. It's a phase, and many people tell me he will be better off for it: I am told these personality types don't surrender to peer pressure, and can be great leaders.

It won't make you feel any better, but my 4yo is the same way. She may be more hard headed than I am(but makes up for it in sweetness when she wants to show some love).

Unfortunately----the 2yo may be more stubborn than her or I combined. :-D



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[DonL]

Thanks for the encouragement or at least a safe place to let things out. I don't mind talking about it as much these days, as long as it doesn't turn into a pity party.

I'll add one thing. Our daughter still likes being carried and held. She's around 4 ft tall, and skinny, so maybe 45-ish pounds? I'm 5'6". Around 155. And 53 years old. She's almost 8. It's getting tougher and tougher to do, LOL! In the words of Roger Murtaugh, I'm getting too old for this ****.

from the weekend, he was done cooperating.

That look is really cute on kids sometimes. I've seen it myself, right before she goes prone wherever she's standing, and starts howling. :laugh: Oh, the grey hairs that kids cause...

 

[woofster]

I'm generally not an overly sentimental or emotional type of person but it's nice to be reminded that we all cherish the wonderful aspect of family life.

My wife & I try not to look at old photos of the kids too often because it makes us (to re-use a word I introduced earlier) suadade. As someone once told me when we just had our 1st child and was learning the ins & outs of parenthood: "The days are long but the years are short". 5 years later, with a 2nd child about to turn 2, we can attest from experience just how true that statement was!

 

[Bibs]

To turn this around, when was the first time your kids make you truly proud? In the sense that they are growing up, and making their own choices?

My 8 year old daughter is a great kid, with the typical amount of sass for her age...We have our moments, but she's been pretty easy.

I had a parent stop me after school a while back, telling me how happy she was with Allie (my girl). We didn't know it, but our daughter had taken it upon herself to spend time at recess with their daughter, who is autistic...Not familiar with the scales of autism, but from the little that I have seen, the girl has great difficulty socializing. I spoke with Allie, and she told me that she felt bad that the girl was on her own every day.

 

[Papa Dras]

It is hard to say the first time because I tend to notice something almost everyday that I just am amazed at and makes me realize how fortunate we are. However, there are a number that stand out:

- our 8yo daughter was asked to put a handprint in a new cement bench they built at school called the "buddy bench" when she was 6. They made it so kids that are sad, having a rough time, lonely, etc can sit there and it encourages other kids to interact with them. My daughter has been recognized several times for standing up to other kids that are picking on others and actually physically stopped some 5th grade boys from destroying an art project in the front of the school. It doesn't hurt that she is testing for her black belt in 2 months, which will be another proud moment. But, now she has one of the only hand prints on the bench for standing up to bullies.

- same daughter took 4th place in state in the U10 division for sparring last summer. The 3 that placed higher were boys.

- same daughter ran her first trail 7k with me and she took first in her age division

- my 5yo ran the same race with my wife- and was the only one at her age.

- every time one of the girls comes home, gets off the school bus, wakes up, etc.. they always hug each other. Not going to lie, it sometimes makes me tear up.

- We are starting to build a mini ramp in the back because my daughter saw old pics of me and wants to start skating.