Kids are the Worst, But We Still Love Them

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Kids are the worst. Not all the time, but they sure can hurt your feelings at times. Yet, we still love them!

Our daughter hardly remembers anything from about 3- to 7-years old. We made so many incredible and fun memories for her during that time… well, the moments were memorable for us if not for her. 

If it’s related to food or when mommy was “mean”, then she’ll relay stories to us all day long. I’m sure there’s some deeper psychological root in there… Now that she’s about to officially cross over that elusive line into her teen years, we want her to remember all those fun and good times. Money was tight, I was working and back in school, and we dealt with a lot as a result of her biological dad and his mother during those early years. Yet, that’s exactly why we put so much effort into the memories we tried to create with her – trips to the art museum to draw and color together as a family, walks to parks, playing with sidewalk chalk, encouraging her in dance and sports, doing her hair in whatever cute style she wanted, reading books to her all the time, and so much more. Her response when we bring up a memory – “Yeah, I don’t remember any of that.” We only have one kid; it’s not like we’re mistaking the experience we had for another kid!! Sometimes we chuckle, but a lot of the times it hurts our feelings.

Childhood is so fleeting, and she’s already more than two-thirds through her time with us. We want her to have as many good memories as we tried to create with her.

We want her to be able to carry those through her teens years and then into adulthood – to carry those memories over to when she has a child of her own, if that’s in the cards for her. We have Instagram to scroll back through the years and find glimpses of the happiness she showed when we were in those memory-making moments, thank goodness. But, it doesn’t “click” for her what surrounded the pictures of her cute smile, bright eyes, and her snaggle-tooth phase. 

When she was forming in my belly, I wrote to her in a journal. I wrote to her during the first few months of her life. I wanted to be able to pass on vivid memories that I knew would even fade for me over time. I read the first entry of that a while ago and didn’t even remember some of the details for myself.

I need to start journaling for her again – to try and capture all the memorable moments we’ll still have with her over the next 5-6 years. Even if she doesn’t remember, we’ll remember.

And, if we forget… we’ll have a written account to remind us all that we actually were great parents and she’s one special and lucky kid to have us. Kids can be the worst, but we still love them.

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