Who was I when I first had my children?
The people that I have been in my life are fading fast in the present concerns and daily activities. The mother I was to Bowden and Lucy when they were Jack and Miles' ages was an entirely different creature than the person I am today...not that that is all a bad thing. I am so much more comfortable with parenting, and so much better at seeing the smallest tendrils of good and bad behaviors and attitudes...so much better at tending and pruning than I was with my first and second.
It comes so easily that the stresses and pangs of those early attempts at child-rearing have been so muted that I usually can ignore my failures easily and move on. The sad thing, though, is that the excitement and fun that was as quickly felt has been muted as well, and the joys I found so easily are ignored in the doing.
Did I think about using a spare quarter to give the "big" kids a ride? It wasn't giving in to a demand- I loved things like this as a kid, and I love letting them have this simple joy. I love a treat. I love making them happy.
But to stop? To wait? It's not impatience, it's momentum lost.
So we did it. I let them have two rides on the yellow choo-choo train. And they loved it. And I loved it. And it was like a new thing.