Chasing Roosters (Sara)

Our kids are 10, 8, and 6 years old, and I think I can say with some certainty that we have hit that fleeting moment in raising children that is known as “The Sweet Spot”.

Now, don’t get me wrong. They are far from perfect and the non-stop parenting to steer them to safety and decency is exhausting every. single. day. At any given moment, you can hear me barking “keep your hands to yourself”, “stop whining”, “enough with the screens”, or an occasional muttered profanity for good measure. There’s a reason I go to work every day.

And yet here we are in this vortex of togetherness, and I can’t think of a better moment in time to share this adventure with them.

For starters, they’re old enough to carry their own bags. My sherpa duties have been nearly eliminated thanks to their oversized backpacks and desire to keep their electronics close to their bodies at all times. But besides that logistical milestone, there are a few other reasons that this time in their lives and ours is one we’ll probably wish we had back one day.

1. Finding the awesome: When given a choice of standing 4 feet from a deadly snake or visiting a big house where a king used to live, they’ll choose the snake every time. Even riding a train in a new city is cause for excitement. And after we drove 2 hours to visit some traditional thai markets, they spent 20 minutes chasing a rooster around a parking lot. Chasing roosters is the sweet spot. It’s that age where they find joy in the things that we adults stopped noticing a long time ago. Seeing it through their eyes is our sweet spot.
2. They like us. They really like us: Our kids still want to be with us. All the time. They want to sit next to us, sleep in our bed, hold our hands, and visit us in the bathroom. They think we’re cool and smart and they laugh at all our jokes. That kind of validation is exactly why I had kids in the first place, so I am fully embracing this period in time before they call my bluff on made-up explanations and start rolling their eyes at my cheesey humor. For now, the wanting to be with us makes traveling together kind of nice. Nobody has tried to escape yet. 
3. So many questions: They are curious about everything and they’re at an age where they actually ask good questions. Watching them take in new information and put the pieces of their world together gives me hope that they will be interesting people, live productive lives, get jobs, and take care of us when we’re old. Because that’s the other reason we had kids.
4. The unicorn: Every so often, I encounter a scene that I try to freeze in my brain to wash away all of the less-gratifying moments of parenting we encounter on a daily basis. When they were babies, all it took was a smile to counter-balance the exhaustion of a sleepless night. Now, those moments have evolved into something more meaningful and those magical mental snapshots are the fuel for my mama engine. The other day, as we touched down at the airport in Krabi, Max, in all of his going-to-a-house-with-a-pool-excitement, hugged me and said "thank you for bringing us here". Today, I watched all three kids make up games and play together in the pool like the best of friends. These unicorn moments seem to be more frequent here, away from the demands of work and school. Or maybe I'm just paying more attention now. Either way, those moments are the icing on the Sweet Spot cake.