PARENTING AND HUMOR

Our Children Grow Up Too Fast

Here are funny reminders for parents.

As a mom, sometimes I need to pause from my hectic pace and laugh. I have to take the time to chuckle because I need to be reminded that my 16-year-old daughter is a mature young lady. She’s simply not the little precocious girl she once was.

If you’re like me, reminders confront you during interactions with your school-age and teenage children. And sometimes these reminders are found right inside your home.

This story contains some anecdotes that represent such reminders. Perhaps a smile will grow on your face as you read my story.

My Daughter Is Not A Little Girl Anymore

I used to hear very sad stories of children, even those enrolled in elementary school choking on foods like hot dogs and grapes. So, I used to slice my daughter’s hot dog vertically any time I prepared one for her for a long time. I also made sure she wouldn’t choke on her fruit, too. But, when my daughter was 14 years old, she looked at me pathetically after I prepared her lunch and told me

“you can stop slicing my grapes in half now!”

The outfit I purchased for my six-month-old infant daughter to wear when she was blessed at church was so dainty and beautiful. It was white and had frilly yet delicate pearls and sequins hand-sewn all over it. I planned to preserve it professionally in a picture frame and display it somewhere prominent in our home. So, after cleaning it, I hung it on the back of a closet door, and then I was going to follow through with my plan. Well, it has hung so long that it turned yellow. And just today I decided to remove it from the back of the door and store it in a plastic bag with some of her other childhood belongings.

We are preparing to relocate to another state. Along with that, we are clearing out our house as we prepare to sell it. In doing so, I decided I better remove all the electrical plug covers that I added when my daughter was in the toddler exploration phase. Surprisingly, I have found many of them throughout our house even though I assumed I removed them long ago.

I am a very sentimental mother. Taking my daughter in the snow and playing with her for the first time was a very precious moment. Aside from taking pictures and making videos of our play adventure, I kept something that captured our fun time together. I placed the first snowball I made with her in a small plastic bag and kept it in our freezer all this time. My daughter and I have taken the snowball out of the freezer to have a good laugh through the years. But, a family dilemma now confronts us. We haven’t decided how we will be able to keep our first snowball from melting when we move 10 hours away from our current home to a much warmer climate in another state.

My daughter thinks she’s very grown up. I tell her she’s

“Grown-ish”

because she isn’t. Here’s a little proof. When she was little, I used to cut her toast and sandwiches into toast points. For her, it made eating her bread in triangles easy to manage and fun to eat. But, my grown daughter still expects me to cut her bread into points. So, I do!

My daughter’s firsts have always been important to me. And I have done my best to memorialize each one. When she was fourteen months old she picked up an ink pen and scribbled it on the corner of a magazine. I carefully cut that part of the magazine, labeled it, and hung it on the side of our refrigerator with a magnet. I still love to look at it now and then.

As I have been packing up our house, it has been especially hard to discard my daughter’s artwork and schoolwork. Even though some had been categorized in scrapbooks and kept with other mementos, it was hard determining what to hold on to and what to discard. My job was difficult because I kept EVERYTHING she has ever created and each piece of schoolwork she ever completed.

My Happy Ending

I guess my list of funny parenting scenarios could continue indefinitely. But the important thing to realize is that the bitter and the sweet intermix with parenting. The memories we treasure help us remain balanced as parents while we accept the reality that our children have grown into maturity at the same time.

Maintaining a willingness to laugh as a mother or father helps us accept the inevitable. Our children and teens are no longer as dependent as they once were. So, just remember to chuckle as you come to terms with continuous reminders even if our children are the ones who deliver them.

Thank you for sharing a few laughs with me.

Are there any humorous parenting stories you’d like to share? If so, be sure to add them in the comment section of this story.

Here is my golden ticket that helps me accomplish my mission.

Dr. Deborah M. Vereen is a retired Teacher and School Administrator. Her website is www.Drdeborahmvereen.com and her YouTube Channel is

Copyright © 2022 Dr. Deborah M. Vereen. All rights reserved.