“Are we there yet?”
As a child, I would ask my parents this 
question as we drove down the interstate from Kansas to Kentucky in our minivan to visit my paternal grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. We only made this eight plus hour trip every few summers, so I was always eager to arrive: to play with my cousins who I rarely saw, to go jump in the pool, and to have a fun and carefree vacation with family.
I always looked forward to the trip because, growing up, we didn’t take too many vacations. And I was always “itching” to get there. The closer we got, the more excited I became.
I was like a kid in a candy store. A kid on Christmas morning. A kid on the first day of summer vacation.
It was a dream.
Your own kids may already be asking you this same question, as irritating as it may be.
And, as my husband reminded me last night, the “Are we there yet?” question truly hits home with parenting.
There is always this sense (a false sense, I will argue) that we will “arrive” in parenting.
When we bring baby home.
When our kids are sleep trained and potty trained and everything trained.
When we send our first child off to preschool.
When we send our last child off to preschool and the house is now empty during the week.
And on, and on, and on.
But as my wise husband reflected, parenting is a journey and you never fully arrive.
If you ask me, he’s right. It’s about baby steps. It’s about small arrivals. It’s about putting one foot in front of the other each day. It’s about getting to each new phase, each new milestone, and each new hurdle that parenting may bring.
So, in terms of parenting young kiddos, it’s not about arriving FULLY.
It’s about all of the tiny arrivals throughout your parenting journey.
From ditching the diapers — to getting out of the whining phase — to your kids becoming more independent.
Our tiny arrivals may also have to do with the growth within ourselves.
From yelling less, to understanding how you were raised has affected your own parenting, to learning to cope with a child who has a completely different personality than you, there are plenty of arrivals that we also have personally.
Sometimes, these personal arrivals are the biggest or most important arrivals because that’s when we can fully step into our true selves and our true parenthood.
And what I want you to know is that as parents, and especially as mamas, it’s important for us to remember that we aren’t perfect. And truthfully, we aren’t called to be perfect. We don’t need to be perfect.
We will mess up, we will come up short, and we will stumble. That’s a part of parenthood.
Sure, we may need to apologize to our kids for losing our cool sometimes, but that’s okay. Our kids need to see that kind of apology-forgiveness relationship. It’s part of the process.
With all of the teaching moments, we also provide our children with a lot of love and joy and security.
So, if you’re waiting for that big moment when you arrive as a parent, stop and look at all of the small moments where you already are arriving: daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly. They are there, and they are more important than some BIG arrival.
It’s a beautiful journey, and as you are well aware, it goes fast.
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