<p>Ah, we also had an apnea monitor for D1, and I don’t miss that, either.</p>
<p>I do NOT miss the ridiculousness that was DD when it was time to get a shot at the pediatrician’s office. It was especially embarrassing because I worked there at the time.</p>
<p>I do NOT miss dropping off and picking up from school, though DH and I did enjoy the occasional reminder to DD of “Make good choices!” as she got out of the car, or doing a little dance just as we pulled up to the drop-off point. After all, isn’t part of parent’s job to embarrass their children? ;)</p>
<p>I still have two at home (thought they aren’t so little) and I have a bad cold right now that was a gift from one of them. UGH. I don’t miss the many stomach bugs, the reflux and the icky diapers.</p>
<p>I did 16 straight years of elementary school and by the end of it, I was sick of it all. Class parties, mystery readers, etc. And while I still participated for youngest DD, I don’t think I ever ate lunch with her at school except on her birthday. Being in the elementary school cafeteria was something I just couldn’t stand.</p>
<p>I had (have?) one that wandered (wanders) and I don’t miss that panicked feeling when I couldn’t spot him. (And still happens and he has his phone on mute.) Looking back, I am amazed I ever left the house with him. (Oh and he talked very late, so he couldn’t have answered me, even if he had wanted too, which he didn’t.)</p>
<p>Haha, MizzBee! If we are in fact allowed to go up to middle school, I would add every miserable moment spent in the (dark, loud, overscented) Hollister store.</p>
<p>I don’t miss the mouthy friends who turned out to be non-friends.</p>
<p>And, I don’t miss the days and nights sitting beside hospital beds every time D was in the hospital. And, the doctor’s visits that led to or followed up on those hospital stays.</p>
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<p>Oh my god you have no idea how much I just wanted to sleep. For eight years, I got up at 4:45 AM so I could get to Wall Street by 8:00 AM. I’d walk in the house at 7:00 PM and have two boys ask me what was for dinner. :eek: Five nights a week, I got five and a half hours of sleep. By Thursday I felt sick. Saturday and Sunday mornings, I’d sleep an extra three hours. </p>
<p>Nowadays, I’m in bed by 10:00 PM and up at 6:00 AM. I think I’m still catching up.</p>
<p>This thread has really struck a chord!</p>
<p>Carpools…I don’t miss them at all. I needed them and was grateful that we were part of a great carpool with really good friends…but I honestly hated ferrying five other kids all over town to their homes after activities.</p>
<p>Assembling Christmas presents on Christmas eve after the kids went to bed…so they would think Santa put together the item. </p>
<p>Easter egg hunts…we always seemed to NOT find one egg:(</p>
<p>We had an apnea monitor too. I do NOT miss that at all!!</p>
<p>What is so funny is that I now have a 7 month old grandson…and I could sit and watch him do whatever for hours without being bored…and yet I hated that phase when my boys were little. And I don’t mind diapers! I guess because I only get to see him every few weeks, it’s all so special.</p>
<p>What is also funny is that he is S1 in spades. Seven months old, and already all over the place. He rolls, he flops, he crawls—he attacks everything in his line of sight with gusto.</p>
<p>S1 was the child who dedicated his crawling hours to unchildproofing the house. Yes, he was the one who figured out some technique to remove all the special plugs from every electric socket in the house…before he could walk. Yes, he is the one who used the bottom shelf of any end table or coffee table as a step to climb up on top…before he could walk. Yes, this is the child who fell out of the bathroom sink–into which he had climbed from the toilet seat while I changed his cousin’s diaper across the hall…when he had just learned to walk. And yes, this is the child for whom we moved all furniture in all rooms completely away from any windows, because we lived on the third floor…there was nothing he could not climb. And this sweet child of mine taught his younger brothers to climb just like him…</p>
<p>I think for every “I don’t miss” I could think of the flip side of what “I do miss.”</p>
<p>I do not miss waking up at night by kids when they couldn’t sleep. I do miss holding them in my arms and rocking them back to sleep.</p>
<p>I do not miss making 20+ party favorites or planning another best ever birthday party after a gruesome work week. I do miss their happy smiles when their friends showed up.</p>
<p>I do not miss waking up at 4 or 5 am. I do miss sharing very quiet mornings with D1 while watching sunrise.</p>
<p>I do not miss wrapping a lot of xmas present on xmas even (pretending we are the santa). I do miss their looks on xmas day and all the excitement leading up to it.</p>
<p>I do miss hearing my kids say, “You are the bestest.”</p>
<p>Ok, I am ready for some grandkids. I will volunteer for all the babysitting.</p>
<p>I do not miss trying to strap D into her toddler car seat while she held herself stiff as a board so her little bottom was about 6 inches from the seat. For a 20-30 pound kid she was STRONG!</p>
<p>I don’t miss not being able to shop without a stroller, snacks etc. But oddly, now when I am at the mall on a weekday, I gaze at the young moms with toddlers in their strollers and feel a pang. But I remember in those days dreaming about the future when I could get my errands done unencumbered!</p>
<p>I don’t miss the constant worry! And the heartache. When my younger one didn’t get invited to that birthday party that every other girl in the class was going to. I didn’t sleep for a week (still see that mom around town and want to smack her).</p>
<p>At the time we didn’t realize that all of that stuff was fleeting. And truly character building. But at the time…wow.</p>
<p>Don’t miss fanny packs and juice boxes and carry-all bags with sticky liners.</p>
<p>The trips to the ER. The worry about tonsils and fevers at 3AM and holding cold wash cloths to her skin to cool her down.</p>
<p>Not sleeping for more than a couple hours at a time for years. Not being able to go out with my husband. Being aware that I could never live up to my own standards.</p>
<p>VeryHappy: this is my first year of the empty nest. I could not believe how SLEEPY I was for the first 4 weeks. I kept kidding around that I was trying to catch up on 21 years of interrupted REM cycles, but I think it was true!</p>
<p>I miss breastfeeding.</p>
<p>I don’t miss the constant arguments with the school about whether they needed to zip up their jackets. My kids were always hot and would have happily worn shorts in the middle of the winter.</p>
<p>Don’t miss carpooling to the charter school with the mile long pick/drop off line and no bus system.
Don’t miss trying to figure out meals for dinner that everyone likes.
Don’t miss all the time spent sitting in the orthodontist office
Don’t miss the stress of dragging S2 through the elementary and middle school years when he always seemed to be teetering on the brink of disaster…which leads to Don’t miss teacher conferences for S2.
Don’t miss the stinky football practice clothes and doing multiple loads of laundry daily but miss watching them play sports.</p>
<p>Don’t miss holding cold washcloths to S2’s back when he got hives. (He still gets them, but now it’s his problem, not mine.)</p>
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<p>Me, too. </p>
<p>But I don’t miss doing it in public places, to the disapproval of people passing by, while simultaneously trying to keep my accompanying three-year-old sufficiently entertained so that he wouldn’t wander off.</p>
<p>I nursed for so long that I longed for the day when I could have my body to myself.
I enjoyed it most of the time, but I don’t miss it more than any other aspect of being a young mom.</p>
<p>sleep deprivation</p>
<p>Like others I am still catching up from the sleep deprivation. I am pretty sure none of mine has ever slept eight hours straight in his life. Probably not six. I gave up trying to “make” them sleep when they were old enough to open the refrigerator and get their own drinks. I gave them rewards if they didn’t wake me up.</p>
<p>toilet training </p>
<p>I thought it would never end and begged my mother to let me drop them off so she and her friends could train them while husband and I took a vacation. It’s the only time she ever refused a request. She said she would be happy to keep them but didn’t have any idea how to convince them to toilet train. My boys kept insisting “only grown-ups use the toilet - not children” </p>
<p>Disney</p>
<p>…</p>
<p>I adored my children and focused on them as intently as possible during those early years. I enjoy the memories very much but would not go back in time. I enjoy them even more as adults. It is a relief to be able to feel that. I feel lucky every single day.</p>