My youngest turned seven this weekend, and for some reason, seven landed differently.

Maybe it’s because six still feels little. Seven feels like we’ve crossed some invisible line. The baby years are obviously long gone, kindergarten is behind us, and he has best friends, opinions, interests and jokes that I don’t always understand. There are parts of his world now that belong entirely to him. I love watching that happen. I love seeing more and more of who he is emerge.

But watching him celebrate this weekend also made me think about how much of the early years of parenting I spent waiting for things to get easier.

I remember waiting for them to sleep through the night. Waiting until leaving the house didn’t require packing what felt like half of it. Waiting until they could get themselves dressed, entertain themselves, make themselves something to eat or just tell me what was wrong instead of completely falling apart over something I couldn’t understand.

You spend years wishing for a little more independence and then, almost without noticing, you get it.

And it is easier.

But lately I’ve started to understand that you’re always trading something for that ease.

I don't say that from a place of regret. I wouldn't go back to sleepless nights or diapers or hauling everything a small human could possibly require everywhere we went. I love this stage of parenting. My boys are funny and interesting and increasingly independent, and I genuinely enjoy getting to know the little humans they're becoming.

But seven made me realize how easy it is to spend one season waiting for the next one.

And I don't think we only do this with our kids.

We tell ourselves things will be better when work settles down, when we make more money, when we lose the weight, when the house is finished, when the kids are older, when this project is over, when the calendar isn't quite so full.

Then we'll relax. Then we'll have more time. Then we'll enjoy things a little more.

I'm particularly guilty of this because I like progress. I'm usually thinking about what I'm working toward, what could be better and what comes next. That instinct has served me well in a lot of areas of my life. But there is a downside to always looking ahead: sometimes you don't realize you've arrived at something you once couldn't wait for.

The future eventually shows up.

The kids sleep through the night. They stop needing you to dress them. They can make their own breakfast. They walk into school without looking back (like today!). The things that once felt so consuming quietly disappear from your life, and often you don't even recognize the last time while it's happening.

There was a last time I carried each of my boys to bed. I couldn't tell you when it was.

There was a last bottle, a last diaper, a last time one of them mispronounced a word we secretly hoped they'd never learn to say correctly. Most of those moments passed without any ceremony because, of course, that's how life works. You rarely know something is the last time when you're living it.

And that's what I kept thinking about as my youngest turned seven.

I don't want to spend seven wishing he were six. That's not the point. I want to meet eight-year-old him and ten-year-old him and sixteen-year-old him—although I could certainly wait a while on that last one! I want to watch him, watch both my boys, become more independent. I want to see his friendships deepen and his interests change and discover all of the versions of him I haven't met yet.

I just don't want to spend seven waiting for eight.

Because seven is pretty great.

He is independent enough to have his own little world but still wants me in it. He can run off with his friends and then come looking for me. He can do so much for himself, but he still needs his mom. He still thinks birthdays are enormous. He still wants to tell me incredibly detailed stories about things I only partially understand.

One day, he won't need me in quite the same way. That's not sad or wrong. In fact, that's the job. We're raising our children to eventually build lives that don't revolve around us.

I just don't need to hurry us there.

And maybe that's something I need to remember beyond parenting, too.

I spend a lot of time thinking about how to make life better. Better routines, better work, better health, better use of time, better decisions. I'm not going to stop doing that. I don't think ambition and presence are mutually exclusive.

But I'm beginning to wonder whether I've occasionally treated my life like one long improvement project.

Not every season needs to be optimized. Some of them probably just need to be lived.

That doesn't mean “cherish every moment,” because I have two children and let's be serious. Some moments are not remotely cherishable. Sometimes the house is a disaster, everyone is overtired, someone is complaining and you would happily fast-forward directly to bedtime. Sometimes we’re all just a little overwhelmed.

But a life doesn't have to be perfect to be worth noticing.

There will always be something I'm working toward. There will always be another goal, another version of myself, another stage of parenting and another idea of how life could be better.

I want those things. I just don't want wanting them to make me overlook what I already have.

Because that's the strange thing about time: the next chapter eventually comes, whether we're ready for it or not.

And when it does, we don't get to keep this one too.

So this week, I'm not trying to slow time down. I know I can't.

I'm just trying to notice seven while I'm in it.

Maybe the measure of a good life isn't whether we're constantly moving toward something better. Maybe part of it is whether we were actually there for the life we had while we were building the one we wanted.

So I've been asking myself a question this week, and I'll leave it with you too:

What in your life right now might you one day miss, even though today it feels completely ordinary?

Until next time,
Nikki

The Wider Measure is about building a life that measures up to more than achievement. If this made you think of someone, send it their way.