The toys won’t be around forever.
Neither will the kids.
Right now, it feels like it will last forever.
The uninhibited shouting.
The relentless mess.
The tiny shoes by the front door.
And the toys.
Everywhere.
You carefully tidy the room.
Five minutes later it looks like a small plastic hurricane has passed through your house.
You wonder whether your children are secretly training to become professional mess creators.
But something beautiful is happening in that chaos.
Something completely unique.
A childhood.
A very short one.
One day there will be no toys on the floor.
No little footsteps running down the stairs.
No one asking you to watch the same magic trick fourteen times while you pretend to be amazed every single time.
One day the house will stay clean.
The bedrooms will stay tidy.
The silence you dreamed of will finally arrive.
And it may break your heart.
Because the noise was not just noise.
It was a chapter of your life.
The mess was not just mess.
It was evidence that someone small was discovering the world.
Those little hands making fingerprints on the glass will one day become hands that carry car keys.
Move into their own homes.
Wave goodbye from a doorway.
And you will stand there wondering how the years moved so quickly.
The hardest part of parenting is that you are often experiencing the last time you do something without knowing it.
The last bedtime story.
The last time they ask you to carry them.
The last time they reach for your hand without embarrassment.
There is no warning.
No announcement.
Just an ordinary Tuesday that quietly becomes a memory.
Which brings us to today’s lesson.
Do not spend so much time trying to clean away the evidence that life is happening.
There will be time for tidy houses.
There will be time for quiet mornings.
There will be time when nobody leaves muddy shoes by the door.
But there is only a small window when your children are exactly who they are today.
So take a breath.
Laugh at the mess occasionally.
Get down on the floor.
Join the game.
Listen to the ridiculous stories.
Take a few photographs.
Not because these days are easy.
Some days are exhausting.
Some days you will count the minutes until bedtime.
That is normal.
But one day, you may find a tiny toy hidden in a drawer.
A little forgotten object from a life that no longer exists.
And you will hold it in your hand and wish, just for one ordinary afternoon, that the house was messy again.
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