<p>fifty-seven of them. my B.S. '76; M.S. '79.</p>
<p>After being dinks (dual income, no kids) for 12 years, along comes D#1 in '88 - now a senior AE+ENGL major @SLU - hoping to graduate in Spring’12.</p>
<p>Bonus baby D#2 arrives in '94 - now a HS senior - also graduating in Spring’12. She has 3 applications out - in a hurry to hear back then try to decide. Impatient yet hesitant to leave the nest.</p>
<p>We are always in such a hurry then we look back at all the years gone by and wonder where the time went. Seems like only yesterday.</p>
<p>Wow - I’m a DemonDeacon76 who was a DINK for 11 years, had D1 in '88 and now has the the youngest of three in 12th grade. I can identify! What’s even stranger for me is that I went into college administration straight out of college, so the faces around me have perpetually been 18-22 ever since I was 18-22. I still feel young except when I look in the mirror.</p>
<p>I miss having my little boy and my little girl sit in my lap all at once and rocking and babbling and snoozing. I will go sit in the rocker sometimes and just remember those moments. Darn, now I’m getting wistful.</p>
<p>I have lived several different adult lives. We were married for 15 years before our first was born (the delay was on purpose, but what we were thinking I can’t imagine). Another one two years later. </p>
<p>Now they are 22 and 20, and, like sewhappy, I very much miss the days when they were little. I volunteer at the public library, working with children’s books, and have many “wistful” moments when I come across the books we read (over and over and over) together.</p>
<p>Love them dearly–when they were little cherubs and now. We had to start our family immediately & did. Now, they’re turning 22 & 24 this year. Loved ever minute and will enjoy becoming a grandparent–maybe in a decade or two. Happily, have always had loving nieces and nephews of all ages to dote on as well.</p>
<p>I feel like toilet training took a about hundred years but the rest of it went by at light speed. … went to bed with finally trained toddlers and woke up with young adults.</p>
<p>It took a couple of years of menopause to finally slake my very intense baby lust. I am pretty interested to see how I respond to the first grandbaby. I adored every stage with my children but do finally feel they could get on without me. And that is probably the best feeling of all.</p>
<p>:) my husband has been a much more emotional empty nester than I am, but I had the opportunity to spend much more time with the children. I may not have done it all right but I sure gave it my all. He had a lot more on his plate.</p>
<p>Sewhappy - my girls are both teens. One is away at school, my “baby” is 5 foot 10. A while back I was watching a friend’s young toddler. At one point the boy climbed in to my lap, leaned back against me and just sat while we rocked. Out of the blue tears pricked my eyes. I had forgotten how sweet it felt. I’m boo hooing again just thinking about it. Darn hormones.</p>
<p>Don’t forget to convert those old VHS and other formatted tapes of the family over to DVD, if you haven’t done so already. I just had Costco convert mine. Also, get those old photos scanned onto disk. I just used a company called Scan My Photos for that but I’m sure you could scan them yourself just as well. I had several thousand photos that needed to be scanned. Preserve those memories!</p>
<p>When I am out shopping and I see a frustrated young mom with a screaming child, I really want to tell her to enjoy it because time sure does move fast.</p>
<p>Teaching them to drive took about a hundred years, too, and was possibly worse than toilet training. But the rest went by so fast.</p>
<p>Even when I see them, I miss them – because I’m missing the children they were, not the adults they are. They are very nice and interesting adults – and more successful than I would have expected, given the economy – but I miss the infants, the 4-year-olds, the 10-year-olds, the teenagers, and even the college students (both of mine have graduated).</p>
<p>I am glad I enjoyed the stages of watching them grow–they did fly by so very fast. Never could understand those who said, “Don’t like them at this phase” or some other phase. It seemed like such a waste, since the time is so fleeting. </p>
<p>We never had any issues with toilet training. They told me when they were ready and willing to stop wearing diapers and/or pull-ups and then they did. Now, driving did produce some white knuckle times and unfortunately me raising my voice sometimes. We have survived it but D still needs some more miles under her belt. Not sure LA is the place for her to acquire them tho–may have her drive A LOT over this Christmas break in HI.</p>
<p>This is a nice, peaceful time while they are just focused on what they want instead of having to tend to others. Fun to watch them. :)</p>
Happily, have always had loving nieces and nephews of all ages to dote on as well.</p>