The times they are a changin’
As I crawled into bed Sunday night, my 15-year old daughter came into my room to remind me I had to crank her palate expander. I remembered doing it when she had orthodontia work at 7. I am now eight years blinder than I was then and apparently a lot less coordinated — it’s a tiny hole in a metal contraption in her mouth that a small wrench-like tool goes in to crank one crank backward.
What struck me most about this interaction — besides the fact I now need glasses to see it — was that my daughter reminded me it needed to be done.
When she was 7, I had to do all the reminding: when to crank, to brush well around her braces, not to chew sticky foods. With this second phase of dental work, I drove her there, waited for her, sat with her and listened to instructions, made the next appointment, then forgot all about it.
She is doing all the maintenance because she is determined the process will take as short of time as possible.
I started considering this new phenomenon in her life and was contemplating how our kids grow up right in front of us, but we don’t always notice until something like this latest event occurs.
There are many things I do that were determined by my kids when they were small. When I set the table for dinner and ask them what they want to drink, they often ask for a glass of milk. I always pour my teen girls half a glass, because that’s all I used to pour them when they were small, couldn’t drink as much and there was a high chance they’d spill it — less milk, less spillage.
Once I bought a new soap pump for my daughters’ bathroom, my oldest was probably a young teen, my youngest 11 or 12. I handed it to my oldest daughter, she opened it and pumped. Straight soap came out instead of foaming soap. I freaked out and my daughter asked me what the problem was.
As I looked up at her — she’s been taller than me since sixth grade at 5 feet, 10 inches — it occurred to me why I bought foaming soap pumps: when they were little they used all the soap in the bottle while playing in the sink full of water for hours at a time. If the soap was in a foaming bottle, they used a fraction of the soap they’d use if it was straight soap. I almost started crying when I realized I didn’t need to monitor their soap usage any longer. They had outgrown playing in the sink.
And speaking of the sink, our bathrooms are very small with no room for a bathroom counter. My husband replaced the cheap cabinet-sink combo with a pedestal sink when our kids were toddlers. It was the best sink we could find for the space we had and we figured it would be nice for the kids to be able to reach it easily as it was lower than the sink in our bathroom. They’ve always been tall for their ages, so at around 5 my oldest was tall enough to play in the sink while standing on the floor, with my youngest at 3 standing on a small stool.
The pedestal sink got a crack in it a few years ago and we replaced it with a nice, open cabinet-sink combo. It is probably six inches taller than the pedestal sink. When I stepped up to the new sink for the first time, I realized what a pain it must’ve been for my two, mid-teen, very tall daughters to even brush their teeth.
Yesterday, as I finished addressing my oldest daughter’s graduation announcements, it struck me how our lives have evolved since they were born. I wouldn’t have it any other way, but with those graduation announcements sitting in front of me and a pair of reading glasses propped on my nose, I realized how “the times, they are a changin’.”
Gretchen Leigh is a stay-at-home mom who lives in Covington. She is looking at life full time through a pair of reading glasses. You can also read more of her writing and her daily blog on her website livingwithgleigh.com or on Facebook at “Living with Gleigh.” Her column is available every week at maplevalleyreporter.com under the Lifestyles section.
