Each night, you have to fight them to get to bed. Each afternoon, you have to fight them about homework. Each winter, it’s three or four trips to the doctor. Each summer, it’s complaints about being bored. Each morning, you’re dragging them out of bed.

It’s arguments. It’s reminders. It’s picking up messes. It’s getting out your wallet. It’s raising your voice. It’s throwing up your hands.

But each time, we cannot forget (and this is what we carry as our reminder), is closer to the last time. And this matters not because it means they won’t behave this way forever, but because it means it won’t be this way forever. They are growing up. They are moving on. Children are a ticking clock. They are on their way to not being children.

So as you get frustrated or annoyed or tired, remind yourself that you are in fact inching closer to a thing that’s going to make you terribly sad one day. You will, in fact, miss this. You will wish you could go back. You will kick yourself for seeing these obligations as obligations and not as a fleeting, wonderful period of time that does not last.

Each step is closer to the last time.