The Day the Swing Kept Moving Without Me

On missed moments, shared custody, and the quiet ways children outgrow us

I didn’t realize how big my oldest had grown until I pushed him on the swing for the first time that year.

I had just finished swinging my four-year-old twins when my oldest ran over for his turn. Without any help from me, he jumped up on the swing. I pulled the swing back with a grunt and let it go, propelling him up into the air. As my hand pressed against his back, he felt so much bigger than his brothers. After a few pushes, I stepped back, realizing he was propelling himself all on his own. His feet pumped and his back leaned away; he knew how to swing by himself now. Noticing, he asked why I had stopped pushing.

I shrugged. “I guess you don’t need me to anymore.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re bigger now, and you know how to push yourself. You don’t need me.” I sighed. “And that’s a good thing. It’s called growing up.”

Girl on the Swing by Winslow Homer

Later, once inside, I took out the binders the twins had received after finishing a year in pre-kindergarten. A year of growth, learning, and changing was contained in those photographs and stories. My two boys, who used to scream and cling to my shirt when I brought them to the Sunday school nursery, had spent a year playing at school for hours without me.

School hadn’t been a part of my plan—but being a single mother wasn’t either. Now, instead of homeschooling, I sent all three boys to school for someone else to teach and someone else to have a hand in their growing up. Tears brimmed in my eyes. I hadn’t felt it all year, but now seeing it laid out before me, it seemed I had missed out on so much. 

Many mothers know the saying, “Babies don’t keep,” from the famous poem by Ruth Hulbert Hamilton: 

Oh, cleaning and scrubbing will wait till tomorrow, 
But children grow up, as I’ve learned to my sorrow. 
So quiet down, cobwebs. Dust, go to sleep. 
I’m rocking my baby. Babies don’t keep.

My oldest is seven. For seven years, I’ve cleaned up messes from meals and snacks—whether spit up milk or spilt cereal. For seven years, I’ve rushed through my shower because there will be tears of some kind if I don’t. For seven years, I’ve kissed cut fingers and scraped knees and quelled big emotions over little upsets. For seven years, I’ve heard, “Again!” to silly games and dumb jokes and annoying books. 

Amid all this, we don’t notice how much they’ve grown up in the meantime and all the things that haven’t “kept.” Like those mornings of arguing over who sits where at the table and cleaning up all the cereal floating in spilled milk on their chairs. Then, when I finally make my way to the shower, at least one child comes sobbing to the door because his brother stepped on the picture he was drawing. I can’t help but wonder when I’ll be able to wash my hair without being interrupted.

But it was closer than I thought. Their first full weekend with their father was coming up, and I already had plans: people to see, chores to get done, rest to be had. I watched the clock, and five minutes early, their ride arrived and they were packed into the back of a Jeep. I waved goodbye and got out my steel wool and soap.

That afternoon, I set out to scrub my house top to bottom, a task that always felt impossible and wasted with three kiddos running behind me spilling crumbs as they traced their grimy fingers along the walls. Three hours later, as I sat on the couch with a plate of supper balanced on my lap, with the TV on and no one yelling over it, I had tears in my eyes. 

I was watching A Gentleman In Moscow. I had read the novel years prior, while married and dreaming of homeschool curriculum. It was the final episode, and the story’s ending hit differently than it had all those years ago. I stood in the hotel lobby with Count Alexander, watching his adopted daughter walk through the revolving doors knowing he’d never see her again—yet also knowing he’d done exactly what he needed to do to save her from the brutality and oppression that Russia had become. 

I carried that image with me even after I turned the TV off as I moved through my silent house. It replayed in my head as I curled up in bed without any little feet pattering to the door to ask for one last goodnight kiss, to tell me they loved me one last time, to ask if butterflies have bad dreams too. 

But Sunday night eventually arrived. The Jeep turned in the driveway and the boys piled out onto the doorstep. Within moments, my vacuumed couch had crumbs on it again, the porch was speckled with dry grass and sand, and every cushion was overturned. I asked them about their weekend away, and each in turn told me their favourite parts. Then my oldest asked, “Mommy, what did you do without us?” 

I told them who I visited with and the deep cleaning. As I tucked them into bed, I held on a little bit longer and a little bit tighter. Because one day, without any warning or realization, there will be many last times: a final push on the swing, the final pull of the blankets up under their chins. One day they’ll grow up and leave my house for more than just a weekend. Babies definitely don’t keep, and there’s a lot of letting go we must do. Until then, I want to silence the cobwebs and breathe through the fighting, because there are too few memories and I have only so many hands with which to grasp them. 

What I really meant to say was, “I missed you. I’m glad you’re home again.”