This is one from the archives. My archives. This is a piece I wrote a few years back for my kids’ elementary school community. It reminds me--and maybe it will remind you, too--to enjoy every stage of parenting. No matter how old our babies are. I got lucky last week. My mom offered to take my two-year old for a few days. (Actually, I don’t remember if she offered, or acquiesced. One of the two.) And so for the first time, in what seemed like a very long time, I had down time. Time alone. I found myself giggling while walking down Columbus. Friends asked if I had lost weight, lightened my hair, had an affair. But no, none of those inquiries were correct. I had simply shipped a little monkey upstate. And even as I left him, as my mom and I were negotiating just how soon I’d be back to pick him up (She: Thursday? Me: Friday?), I could feel my shoulders lifting.

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P'kolino Nesting Birds are a toddler toy so cute they could almost be a table centerpiece...and they're educational too!

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I don't let my son watch much TV. Occasionally, I turn on PBS Kids if I need to get dinner in the oven without him hanging on my leg, or let him watch a Sesame Street video on my laptop if the two of us need a break. But that's about it. So on a recent flight back home from Florida, watching the Cartoon Network (even without the sound on) on the mini TV in front of him was the most screen time my one-and-a-half-year-old has ever had.

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The day I was preparing to bring my daughter home from the hospital, a nurse told me something that I will never forget. She said, ”Whatever you do, don’t get hung up on milestones. You can read all the books in the world about what kids should be doing, but the kids don’t read any of them. They do things in their own time.”

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