When I was pregnant with my son, I read “What to Expect When You’re Expecting” along with all kinds of other books, blogs, and baby apps to help me prepare for all that would change. When I signed up for the Publix Baby Club, they sent me a huge paperback book that covered everything about kids from birth to age 5. A friend passed down a book from Dr. Dobson about children and parenting — through age 5. The “What to Expect” books also stopped in the toddler years. No one talked about what to expect in the post-toddler years, so this is what I would tell someone to expect when you’re no longer expecting…the post-toddler years.
You will feel simultaneously so happy that your little boy or girl is becoming independent, yet you will surprisingly yearn for the days that you changed diapers, rocked your baby to sleep, and gave him or her a bottle. This is normal. You may even start thinking, “maybe I should have another baby…”
You will smell Dreft on the clothing of someone walking by and it will make you want to cry. My office manager’s daughter recently had a little girl and my office manager loved the smell of Dreft so much, she now washes her clothing in it. Whenever I am around her, I am taken back five years to that sweet, fresh baby smell.
Even though your child has probably attended MDO, daycare, or preschool, you will feel a wave of anxiety coming over you the night before kindergarten. You will read a book to your child, tuck him or her in to bed (of course after putting the magic “ready confetti” under his or her pillow!), and then you will not want to leave the room. You will stare at your child and think, “didn’t we just bring you home from the hospital last week???” You will begin to panic. How will your child survive all day without you? What if he doesn’t know how to button his shorts back after he uses the bathroom? What if she misses you and cries? “WHAT IS MY KID DOING RIGHT NOW?” you will wonder all day for at least the first week or so of school. Then the horror of “Independence Day” will come. No, not the day we celebrate our nation’s independence from England…the day your child GETS OUT OF THE CAR AND WALKS INTO SCHOOL BY HIMSELF. I am not sure I can even explain the feeling of watching your child walk into school without you for the first time.
Your child’s personality begins to really shine and you start to see things that are JUST LIKE YOU…yet, not AT ALL like you. Why is he so shy? Why doesn’t he like to write letters and sentences? How come he can play soccer and t-ball without a care as to who is watching him but he stands in front of the church like a statute when everyone else is singing and dancing to the most fun song from vacation bible school? How am I ever going to understand a kid who hates doing worksheets? These similarities and differences make parenting difficult…sometimes because you see yourself in a little body standing in front of you and sometimes because you have no clue what is or is not motivating your child.
You just thought changing diapers was rough. Having to help your potty-training or potty-trained but not quite so adept at wiping 4 or 5 year old is NOT FUN. I think my kid intentionally waits to go #2 until he is home just so I have to “check” that he wiped himself correctly.
They are SO OPINIONATED. About everything. This does not stop after they graduate from being threenagers. And because they are now capable of higher-level thinking and functioning, they argue with you and ask “why?” even more.
Your child knows the rules and he WILL tell you when you are not following them. Like when you pull into your driveway and your kid says, “Mom…why did you unbuckle your seatbelt before you stopped the car?” “Oh, I don’t know, because I have been going 90 to nothing all day and haven’t had time to pee so I was hoping to jump out of the car and run to the bathroom before I wet myself…”
You will realize that just as you made it through all the other transitions, this season of no longer expecting/the post-toddler years brings new lessons and highs and lows…but you WILL make it through!
