Four things about my children’s childhood that I won’t miss

I will miss many, many things when my children are now longer little. I know how precious this period in their life is. I know how quickly time will seem to pass. 

I know all this. I don’t need any other parent to tell me, but boy oh boy do they like to tell me. Again and again and again. It’s as if they think they’ve discovered something that was already painfully obvious to me and probably every other parent and must now share it from the rooftops of the world.    

However, there are also a few things that I won’t miss when they are gone. Not just petty annoyances or aggravations that are fleeting and forgettable. Not just any minor perturbance. I’m talking about the persistent, seemingly endless, truly soul-crushing parts of parenting small children. These are the things I won’t miss at all. Not one bit.

This is the list: 

Car seats
They suck so bad. Buckling kids in. Shifting car seats from one vehicle to another. The collection of detritus that gathers beneath the car seats. Car seats are the bane of my parental existence. 

Blowing on food
It sucks to stare at your own meal while blowing on food for another person that isn’t even very hot.

Interrupting me while I’m on the phone
“Sorry, Daddy. I didn’t realize that you were on the phone. Silly me. Now I’m going to continue to talk to you anyway as if that phone pressed against your ear is just a large, rectangular earring.”

Escorting children to public restrooms
Public restrooms were not designed for little people. The toilet is too large. The sinks are too high. And just try keeping a four year-old boy’s hands off anything gross in a public restroom.