When my daughter came home from Argentina recently we were reunited for the first time in months. Instead of running off to be with friends, she hung around. She wanted to be with us more.
It can happen, I tell my friends whose children are younger. Our pesky hungry, wailing, filthy, bratty, rude, disrespectful, quirky, darling off-spring can become our friends.
We found an old home video shot mostly in the first year we lived in Ketchum. We now call it the "Singy, singy, sing, sing," for a ditty that Hayley made up on the spot at age five, with Piper singing along--age two--the best she could.
This is what it's like when they are little. We just let them be and watch as they find themselves. And here 15 years later, the three of us watched us in our younger skin and giggled so much we were crying. I'm not sure they knew how impossibly scrumptious, delightful and beloved they really were then.
