When we paused the movie, my 7 year-old got in her pajamas without prompting. In that moment, I thought about how I actually miss the fights. The bedtime fights. The

I don’t want to put on my pajamas
I hate brushing teeth

And

Please can’t I stay up later

Fights
No fights. She just does it herself.

When she was 3, I couldn’t wait for her to outgrow the fighting. Now I long for the fights because it means time has turned backward and I get for her to be three again.

Parents understand when they’re thinking irrationally. We often embrace the strange beauty of it. We accept that our children change as they get older. That makes sense. We are often rational about being irrational.

So what’s our excuse for everything else? Why then do we fail to recognize all the other times when we’re being irrational?